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Condition
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Published by Paolo Andrea Molina, Milan, 1850
Seller: White Fox Rare Books, ABAA/ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
First Edition
Quarter leather. Condition: Very Good. First edition thus. Large paper presentation copy of this Byzantine history by a hold-out pagan who often took a jaundiced view of the policies, practices and actions of the Christian rulers. As stated on the title page, this is the first published version in Italian, and that in itself is significant as scholarship was emerging from the clerical yoke which had stifled it in so many ways following the Counter-Reformation on the Italian peninsula. [iv], 316 pp. 6 full page engravings; folding map of Armenia, Media, etc. -- the area between the Black and Caspian Seas. 4to, about 30 by 21 cm, or 11 by 8 inches. A few pages at rear remain uncut. Some scattered light foxing. A little heavier on half-title. Later decorated cloth boards with unusual red sunburst-like diaper pattern, which is bound in red leather spine. Boards are of a card stock thickness and don't lay entirely flat but flatten easily when shelved. Binding is tight. More on the substance of the work: the Church for obvious reasons sought to discredit him and his history, and by the same token, he has had his proponents for challenging the received history. This version of the work is especially scarce.