BOTERO, Giovanni Lettera…sopra la morte dell’illustrissimo Cardinale di S. Prassede. Tradotta di latino in volgare; da...Cornelio Peraccini stampato in Milano, in Bologna, in Rauenna, & di nuouo in Macerata per Sebastiano Martellini, [1584]
AN UNRECORDED EDITION of Botero’s account of the last seven weeks of Saint Charles Borromeo’s life and his death on 4 November 1584. Leaving Milan on 18 September he went to visit the Bishop of Novara, but, finding him dead, remained only to bury him, and then went to Turin via Vercelli where he saw the Shroud. After Turin he went to the religious fraternity on Mount Varallo in the Novarese where there seems to have been some kind of Christian theme park with many sites resembling the Holy Places in Palestine, ‘in vn luogo con gran pietà si rapresenta il luogo doue nacque Christo. In vn altro oue fù crocifisso, in vn altro oue fu sepolto, ò fece qual si voglia altra cosa…’. Making this his base he seems to have made several journeys in the vicinity, exhausting himself so much that on 31 October he caught a fever that wouild kill him five days later. Botero, who from 1581 was Borromeo’s secretary, describes the scene well, especially the grief of the Milanese, and even gives us details of the autopsy that was performed on him. The author (1540-1617) is better known for his Della ragione di stato libri dieci and his Delle relationi vniuersali. An interesting piece of ephemera from the first resident printer in Macerata.
8vo. 4ff. Woodcut arms on title-page, one line of text a little rubbed on last page where the book was folded before being bound, in modern boards.
£450
This item is listed on Bibliopoly by Hesketh and Ward Ltd.; click here for further details.