CITOLINI Alessandro La Tipocosmia.
Venice, V.Valgrisi, 1561 8vo: woodcut device on title-page. 18th century vellum with titling-piece.Cipher inscription and signature of Andrea Pittori on title-page, which is not fresh. Marginal waterstain in about ten gatherings. Only edition of this strange encyclopaedic work. The author became a Protestant and took refuge in London where Giordano Bruno mentions him as having had his leg broken by the buffeting of a rough English crowd. In this work he attempts, as his teacher Camillo had attempted, to classify all human knowledge relating each component of the physical world to its given place. Thus located all could be understood and memorised.In the classification involved in this ambitious undertaking we are, in fact, given an extraordinary insight into the life of the time. To take a random sample:- a section is devoted to music and musical instruments: these are divided into da fiato and a mano; after several subdivisions stringed instruments are divided into lists of those with metal strings and those with gut strings, subdivided again according to method of playing. Every field of human activity, as well as the natural world, is similarly treated - children and adults' games, wine, cooking, perfumery, vegetables, herbs and flowers, to name but a very few of the subjects which constitute the whole field of knowledge.
£1500
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