FLORENCE 1616 -- SALVADORI, Andrea (1591-1635). Guerra di Bellezza. Festa a cavallo fatta in Firenze per la venuta del serenissimo Principe d'Urbino. Florence: Zanobi Pignoni, 1616.



4 o (221 x 161 mm). Collation: A 2 A-C 4 D 2 (imposed and printed on one sheet with quire A); 5 folding etched plates by JACQUES CALLOT (1592-1635) after GIULIO PARIGI (1571-1635). Large cursive type for verse, roman for prose; title and type-ornaments, heading, floral initial and first word to dedication PRINTED IN GOLD AND SILVER. Engraved Urbino arms on title-page. (Silver printing oxidized.) Original gold-tooled limp vellum, sides paneled with fillets and a crest roll, acorn tool and a rosette at the angles, cluster of thistles tooled in the center (ties missing). Provenance: FEDERIGO UBALDO DELLA ROVERE, Prince of Urbino (1605-23), the dedicatee (title and incipit to the dedication printed in gold and silver); V. de Gobbis (his motto: Je fus sage je fus fou, woodcut bookplate by the Venetian artist Alberto Zanverdiani); Ulrico Hoepli (sold to Gourary 1954).



THE DEDICATION COPY. A great public pageant was held in October 1616 at Florence on the occasion of a visit of the 11-year old PRINCE OF URBINO, who was betrothed to the 12-year-old Claudia de' Medici (1604-48). It involved balls, mascherate, allegorical chariots and a tilt on the square of Santa Croce, culminating in an equestrian ballet. The floats and the grandstand for the spectators were created by Parigi, the choreography by AGNIOLO RICCI. As "the riders guided their horses through intricate maneuvers, Fama vowed to promulgate through all the cities of Europe the perfection which the feste a cavallo had attained at the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany" (A.M. Nagler, Theatre Festivals of the Medici, Yale UP 1964, p. 130). According to Lieure (177-182), the plates by Callot, who was a pupil of Parigi's, are extremely rare. Cicognara 1421; Vinet 792; Ruggieri 774; Berlin 3042.

