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THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN SAN GIMIGNANO - THE ECCLESIASTICAL CORTEGIANOFolio (291x210 mm). [1], CCXLII [i. e. 224], [17] leaves. 242 leaves in total. Collation (simplified as compared with the ideal collation presented by Centi-Harris, see below): a10 A-E8 F8 FF6 G-H8 I24 K-L8 M7 N14 NN8 O4 p2 P8 Q17 q-r6 R18 S-X8. Leaves I21, N11, NN8, R13 and V8 are blank. Lacking the blank leaf a1. Leaf a10 is bound at the beginning of the volume, with the rest of gathering a bound at the end, after gathering X. Roman type. Colophon at l. V7v. The Annotationes (ll. X1-8) and the index (ll. a2r-a9r) are printed in two columns, the registrum (l. a9v) in three. Blank spaces for initials with guide letters. Contemporary flexible vellum, inked title along the spine (worn, title faded, spine slightly darkened). At the bottom of the title page, an ownership entry that is no longer legible, even under a Wood's lamp. Lower outer corner of the first ten leaves skillfully repaired with no damage to the text, final leaf slighlty soiled, some occasional marginal staining, all in all a very good, genuine copy in its original binding.Extremely rare first edition. The editio princeps of Paolo Cortesi's De cardinalatu holds an undisputed place of prominence among the glories of the San Gimignano press, both for its antiquity and the historical and cultural significance of the work. The colophon of the edition cites the place of publication as ?in Castro Cortesio,? referring to the ancient residence of the Cortesi family in a village on the hills of the municipality of San Gimignano, known today as Monti. The colophon also dates the printing to 1510 and names Simone Nardi, who worked as a typographer in Siena from 1502 to 1539, as the printer.It has previously been suggested that, rather than transporting the types and press by mule to the San Gimignano region, the book was simply printed in Siena. Nardi's recently published annals, however, offer insight into his printing activity in Siena, revealing that no book currently on record was produced under his signature in that city between 16 May 1509 and the spring of 1511. The most convincing argument in favour of San Gimignano as the actual place of printing -under the direct supervision of the author- lies in the peculiar structure of the typographical artefact, which exhibits numerous changes of intention and editorial interventions that can only be explained by a work carried out in situ.Indeed, a number of peculiarities surround the production of Cortesi's celebrated work. The inexperience of the printer, who had mostly printed only small publications up to that point, the author's apparently direct involvement in revising and correcting the proofs as they were being printed; and, finally, the author's early death, after which the edition was taken over by his brother, means that no two copies of the De cardinalatu are identical. Of the recorded copies, none exactly match another in terms of collation, and none reflect the printer's original intention, as outlined in the register, which provided precise instructions for assembling the volume (cf. S. Centi-N. Harris, Per il ?De cardinalatu' di Paolo Cortesi: la copia ?ideale', gli esemplari e i messaggi occulti, in: ?Gli incunaboli e le cinquecentine della Biblioteca Comunale di San Gimignano?, San Gimignano, 2007, II, pp. 29-31).The event that most disrupted the printing of the treatise was the author's untimely death. The precise date of the event remains unknown as the relevant news was communicated by the publication itself, which was ultimately completed by the author's brother Lattanzio with the assistance of friends Vincenzo Mainardi and Raffaele Maffei, known as il Volterrano. While the colophon bears the date 15 November 1510, this evidently did not mark the end of the printing process, as a note to scholars signed by Lattanzio Cortesi on l. X1r of the Annotationes is dated 1 December from San Gimignano.Variations in the printing and collat. Seller Inventory # bc_13687
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