CASA, Giovanni della Il Galatheo…Nel quale sotto la persona d’vn vecchio idiota ammaestrante vn suo giouanetto, si ragiona. De modi, che si debbono ̣ tenere, ̣ schifare nella commune conuersatione. Rome Valerio Dorico 1560
8vo. 67ff. (of 68, lacks the final blank). Small woodcut plaque on title-page, a few light spots and stains, in late sixteenth/early seventeenth century limp vellum.
Probably the fourth edition. It was first printed in Venice in 1558 together with his Rime e prose, then separately at Milan (very rare) and then Florence, Giunta 1559/1560, a much more common edition than this one. This is Della Casa’s most important and most widespread work named after Galeazzo Florimonte, Bishop of Sessa, who had suggested the idea to him. In essence it is a treatise on good manners with long passages on dress, speech (and what words and jokes to avoid), deportment and how to conduct oneself at table, with stern strictures on drunkenness. But beyond this it is also a compendium of moral teachings derived from the author’s wide experience and refined culture. The work became so popular that its title ‘Galateo’ passed into the Italian language as a synonym for etiquette. It was first published in English in 1576 and was still being printed into the nineteenth century.Censimento CNCE 16465 (2 copies); Fontanini/Zeno II, 351; not in BMC or Adams; RLIN locates only one copy.
£750
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