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Three titles in one, bound in a near-contemporary late medieval limp vellum case with yapp edge, 12 mo, (measuring 4 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches) Presumed original owner's signature to first title page in old ink: "Hironimus Baptistinij" Text in vernacular Tuscan Italian. Valgrisi's printer's device to each title page has been described as "a serpent coiled around a tau-shaped staff supported by hands emerging from clouds." Each book with Roman and italic type, historiated woodcut capitals, indexes, and printed on hand moulded paper. An individual's label to pastedown, dated 1766, with their library number, is also written in ink to front of vellum. CONDITION: Very Good Antiquarian Condition. Note: Vellum is disbound, but text block remains securely sewn, revealing book's construction with some re-purposed Renaissance MS parchment strips hand-lettered in black and colored inks remaining (which would be normally hidden from view between the spine and textblock.) Front endpaper has come unglued, showing faint annotation to verso dated1607 in old ink and perhaps name. Text pages are generally fine, with some slight finger soiling to prelims first title. Text is not annotated, underlined or foxed. Very slight water damage noticed in a few places at top margin and vellum fore-edge. One page corner clipped. Spine lettered in old ink, mostly illegible ** FIRST TITLE: "[Gli] ORDINARI DI CAVALCARE, Et modi di conoscere le nature de' Cavalli, emendare i viti i loro et ammaestrargli per l'uso della guerra & commodità de gli huomini. Composti dal Signor Federico Grisoni [Grisone] gentilhuomo Napolitano...(1552). Very early edition: Rare. This is Valgrisi's 3rd printing of the title, first published by Giovani Paulo Suganappo in Naples,1550. pp. 238pp. A-P8 [2 blank]. 1552. In 4 books, with two woodcut illustrations of the riding ring. The rules of riding, orders of horse training, the nature of the horses, teaching to their strengths, training them for the use of war and the comfort of men. **The classic manual of riding master Federigo Grisone's Neapolitan School of Horse Riding, a foundational text on menage, or courtly horse riding for Renaissance warfare, said to based upon the writings of the ancient Greek Xenophon in the 5th century BC. AUTHOR, FEDERICO GRISONI established his riding school in 1532 in Naples. It has been noted that he used both positive and negative (cruel) reinforcements in the training of horses --he says to tie a a mean cat to a pole aimed at the horse's belly, for instance. Later translations focused more on more humane treatment of the animals. Later translated into French, German and English and reprinted many times by others into the seventeenth century. This very early Venetian edition by the transplanted French printer/publisher known as Vincenzo Valgrisi of Venice (1495--1573), aka Vincent Vaugris. Dedication to Don Cardinal of Ferrara (1509-1572). in four books or chapters. EDIT 16 CNCE 21835. USTC 834699; RARE only 23 copies known worldwide. **SECOND TITLE: "DUELLO DEL [Sebastiano] FAUSTO DA LONGIANO. REGOLATO à le leggi de l'honore..." (1552, second edition). The rules of etiquette or dueling with honor, "in this time of errant knights and bravi." In five books, with errata and table of contents outlining the specifics of dealing with combatants from various nationalities: Breton, English, Portuguese, French, Naples et al. Dedicated to Giacobo Piombino, sixth lord of Aragon Appiano (1529-1585). The Piombino dynasty were allied with the Aragonese from Naples, and through them part of the Holy Roman Empire, and held coastal territory at this time which included the island of Elba and some smaller islands as well as a couple of mainland ports. This land would change hands in the mid-16th century, traded to the Medici by Phillip II of Spain in 1548 and then ceded again to the Piombinos by a treaty with Cosimo I di Medici in 1557. AUTHOR [Sebastiano] Fausto da Longiano. (1502-1565) was an man of letters and member of the aristocratic Academy of Costanti in Vicenza. He died in Padua. EDIT16 CNCE 18632. USTC 828868. Rare: only 20 known copies worldwide.** THIRD TITLE: STRATEGEMI DELL' ARTE DELLA GUERRA DI POLIENO [Polyaenus] MACEDONICO dalla Greca nella volgar lingua Italiana, tradotta da M. Niccoló Mutoni...(Vinegia: 1551, First edition.) Dedicated to Giovani Iacopo [Giacomo] de Medici, Marchese di Marignano , the Marquis was a politically connected brother of Pope Pius IV, another Medici, and as a condottiere, the leader of a mercenary force preferred by the papacy in this period to maintain power without favoring one principality over another. Pius IV became pope in 1559. Greek military theory of the first century A.D., organized in eight books, 369pp. [5pp. index] [2blank]. Translator Niccoló Mutoni was also humanist scholar and contributor to a 1559 work of medicine and alchemy, "Luminare Maggiore," with Author Dr. Iacopo Medici. **This appears to be an extremely rare First Edition--all others in OCLC, BnF and seen for sale date from 1552. USTC lists only 34 known copies of our 1551 edition worldwide. No: 850236. **REFS: Recommended reading: see our title No. 9733, Prescott's History of Charles V, which has much to say about the conduct of warfare in Italy at this time. CERL Thesaurus for all names. A. Nuovo, "The Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance" (Leiden/Boston:Brill,2015) for background on V. Valgrisi. K. Jutzi, Special Collections Yale Univ., "Medieval & Early Modern Manuscripts, Bookbinding Terms, Materials, Methods and Models" (2015) (AMJ).
Ref: RARE 9769
$1600.00 $1360.00