DUKES OF d'ARENBERG COPY

BOLOGNESE BAROQUE ARTISTS. Emblemata. By Paolo Maccio. 331, [5] pp. Illustrated with engraved title-page, full-page copperplate dedicatory leaf of Virgin and Child, and 81 numbered copperplate etchings buy various Bolognese artists. 4to., 200 x 142 mm, bound in contemporary Italian ruled and ornamental stamped binding. Bologna: Clemente Ferroni, 1628.

First Edition. An extremely fine Italian emblem book "Belonging to the Best Bolognese Illustrations" (Goldschmidt, Auktionskatalog 146, #98).

Little is known of the author Paolo Maccio (ca. 1570- ca. 1640). In general the text of Maccio's emblem book differs little from emblemata of the period, except in his case, a regional emphasis infuses the text, illustration and dedications. Along with the expected moral and devotional meanings, one finds political and societal themes intermixed. Maccio ascribes names of contemporary Bolognese politicians, church figures, and prominent citizens as dedicatory recipients of individual emblems throughout the book.

Each of the 81 emblems consists of four pages, comprising the pictura (illustration), and the verse (subscriptio) at head in Latin and translation into Italian below. On the verso appears a quote from classical literature from Horace, Virgil, Pliny, Aristophanes, Justinius, Sophocles, Plato, Juvenal, Ovid, Lucretius, etc., relating to the particular emblem. Then follow two pages of explanation of the emblem's meaning, in either Italian or Latin. With an index of the illustrations and name index printed on the final five pages.

The illustrations are the combined work of a number of artists from the Carracci school in Bologna. Ludovico and Agostino Carracci established their academy in Bologna in 1582; it became the training ground for many of the best known artists of the seventeenth century. The artists of the Carracci school revolted against the prevailing Mannerist style by showing greater naturalism and directness of expression. These attributes are found in nearly every etching in Maccio's Emblemata. The title-page is signed "Corio(lano) f." i.e. Giovanni Battista Coriolano (1595-1649), who executed a further 26 of the emblems (#s 80-106); 2 of the copperplates are signed by Florius Macchius (#s 76 & 79), a few are signed with the mongram AP for Augustino Parisini (active 1625-1638); and finally Oliviero Gatti (1598-1646), to whom 52 of the copperplates are attributed. Emblem III depicts an early representation of the telescope. Very minor repairs to binding extremities, an exceptionally fine copy with a distinguished provenance. Fine copies of this title are extremely rare.

PROVENANCE: Dukes of d'Arenberg, with the Nordkirchen ex-libris; Comte Le Moyne de Martigny, with ex-libris.

Landwehr, Romantic, 496. Praz I, 409. Cicognara 1913. BL, Seventeenth-Century Italian Books II, 512. Brunet III, 1268.