CONTI Natale Mythologiae sive explicationis fabularum libri decem...Accessit G.Linocerii musarum mythologia & anonymi observationum in rotam de diis gentium narrationem libellus ...& eruditissimae mythologiae M. Antonio Tritonii.
Padua, L.Pasquati for P.P.Tozzi, 1616 4to: large woodcut arms on title-page, folding plate of the heavens, two full-page and over 100 half-page woodcut illustrations in the text. Contemporary vellum: a very nice copy in its first binding. A very important edition of the most influential mythography of the late Renaissance and the whole Baroque period which was used as a source by Ronsard and others of the Pl iade as well as by Chapman and Bacon. On artists its influence was equally profound. Art theorists too took the work as a fruitful source, often without acknowledgment: Lomazzo in particular lifted great chunks for his section on iconography. The early editions were unillustrated. Pignoria, a noted antiquarian, had collaborated with Tozzi to produce in 1615 a scholarly and much augmented edition of Cartari's Immagini: some of the woodcuts used for that work appear again here in an equally well-prepared edition which incorporates other relevant texts. For a full discussion of the work and its great influence see Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods.
£1500
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