1621 · Bologna
by CESARI, Domenico
Bologna: Sebastiano Bonomi for Girolamo Tamburini, 1621. 8vo (150 x 98 mm). 2 parts, continuously paginated. Engraved fold-out title signed F. B. F. [Francesco Brizio fecit], [22], 262 pages (pp. [126-128] blank). Two woodcut initials. Marginal tear at fold of engraved title, very occasional minor marginal dampstain. Contemporary parchment (stain on front cover, backstrip torn). Provenance: author's presentation copy, ex dono inscription from the recipient: 1621 / Donum ipsius Auctoris, mihi Michi / Angelo Actio, Bononia [?].***
First Edition of a collection of 200 Neo-Latin letters from a professor of literature (umane lettere) at the University of Bologna, addressed to an array of local (all male) intelligentsia, most from Bologna or nearby towns. An index lists the recipients in alphabetical order of first name. Most received one letter; a few carried on a more frequent correspondence. The edition was edited and printed at the expense of one of the correspondents, Girolamo Tamburini, and was evidently distributed privately to Cesari's other correspondents. This copy was given by the author to the protonotary apostolic Michael Angelus Actius (recipient of one letter, p. 20). Correspondents include prelates, monks, philosophers, theologians, jurists, professors of logic, literature, law and medicine, poets, members of chivalric orders (the Hospitallers, the Order of St. Stephen), senators of Bologna, and two cardinals (Carlo de' Medici and Carlo Madruzzo). Subjects are suitably elevated - ethics, religion, philosophy, classical writers (Plautus's comedies, Tacitus), his interlocutors' poetry - displaying Cesari's erudition, but not (in Vernarecci's view) a commensurate purity of style.
Other than a few circumstantial orations, in Italian and Latin, Cesari's main published work consisted of 500 letters. These first two hundred were reprinted in 1623 by B. Cocchi, along with a separate edition containing two hundred more letters. The final centuria appeared in 1624. OCLC, USTC and ICCU record no copies of any of these epistolary collections in American libraries.
ICCU ITICCUBVEE�38789; USTC 4000795; cf. A. Vernarecci, Dizionario biografico degli uomini illustri di Fossombrone (1872), p. 13. (Inventory #: 4258)
First Edition of a collection of 200 Neo-Latin letters from a professor of literature (umane lettere) at the University of Bologna, addressed to an array of local (all male) intelligentsia, most from Bologna or nearby towns. An index lists the recipients in alphabetical order of first name. Most received one letter; a few carried on a more frequent correspondence. The edition was edited and printed at the expense of one of the correspondents, Girolamo Tamburini, and was evidently distributed privately to Cesari's other correspondents. This copy was given by the author to the protonotary apostolic Michael Angelus Actius (recipient of one letter, p. 20). Correspondents include prelates, monks, philosophers, theologians, jurists, professors of logic, literature, law and medicine, poets, members of chivalric orders (the Hospitallers, the Order of St. Stephen), senators of Bologna, and two cardinals (Carlo de' Medici and Carlo Madruzzo). Subjects are suitably elevated - ethics, religion, philosophy, classical writers (Plautus's comedies, Tacitus), his interlocutors' poetry - displaying Cesari's erudition, but not (in Vernarecci's view) a commensurate purity of style.
Other than a few circumstantial orations, in Italian and Latin, Cesari's main published work consisted of 500 letters. These first two hundred were reprinted in 1623 by B. Cocchi, along with a separate edition containing two hundred more letters. The final centuria appeared in 1624. OCLC, USTC and ICCU record no copies of any of these epistolary collections in American libraries.
ICCU ITICCUBVEE�38789; USTC 4000795; cf. A. Vernarecci, Dizionario biografico degli uomini illustri di Fossombrone (1872), p. 13. (Inventory #: 4258)
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