Commentariorum urbanorum Raphaelis Volaterrani octo et triginta libri.

Folio. pp. [36], Cols. 1-1218, pp. [3]. With printer’s device on title page. The colophon (verso of final leaf) reads "Sebastianus Gryphius excudebat Lugduni, anno M.D.LII." and contains a large woodcut griffin device. Dual column text with fine decorative initials. Several diagrams are included with the text illustrating… Bound in full period vellum (rubbed). Title and shelf number are written on the spine in an early hand. An old ownership or institutional stamp is present on the title page, the second leaf, leaf T5, and also on the colophon page. Interior pages contain mild to moderate age-toning and periodic scattered foxing and spotting. Some pages are more uniformly toned. Raffaelo Maffei (1451-1522) was an Italian humanist, historian and theologian. His "Commentariorum urbanorum" (first published in 1506) is an encyclopedia of all subjects known at the time. The work is particularly notable for the importance given to geography and to biography. Maffei writes extensively on the discoveries of the Spanish and the Portuguese explorers including Christopher Columbus and the discovery of the New World (in this edition mentioned in column 368). The encyclopedia is divided into three parts: Part I. Geographica (in 11 books); Part II. Anthropologia (biography in 11 books) including lives of illustrious men, popes and emperors; Part III. Philologia (in 15 books) which discusses natural science (animals, plants, metals, gems, stones), grammar and rhetoric, mathematics, geometry, optics, astronomy, astrology, Aristotelian thought etc. [See Catholic Encyc. and EB11]. [Shaaber, p. 337; Baudrier VIII, p. 259; Harrise 67 & 161 – listing 1511 and 1530 editions; Sabin 43765 – listing the 1511 edition; this edition not in Adams].…