Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium,
septem libris iam olim ab authore comprehensa, et nunc ex eiusdem musaeo ad vivum expressis imaginibus exornata

(Praise of Men Illustrious for Courage in War)

by Giovio, Paolo (1483-1552)


Basel: Heinrich Petrus & Petrus Perna, 1575


First illustrated edition of Giovio's classic biographical works with the renown portrait woodcuts by Tobias Stimmer including among the earliest printed portrait of CHRISTOPHOR COLUMBUS.
Accounts of the lives of illustrious men, whose portraits Giovio maintained in his private collection at his villa at Lake Como, including prominent leaders of Arabia and Persia, Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortes as well as Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Cesar Borgia, Emperor Charles V,  Elizabeth of Aragon, Francisco Gonzaga, Henry VIII of England, Louis XII of France, Mahomet II of Turkey, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, King Robert of Naples, King Sigismund of Poland, Suleiman the Great, Emperor of the Turks, Tamerlane, Saladin , as well as great Renaissance nobles, scholars and authors including Dante, Bude, Cosimo di Medici, Machiavelli , Ariosto, etc.
.
After assembling an impressive collection of painted portraits of noted rulers , men of letters, and other notables, mostly being images from life, Giovio composed short biographies based on portraits.
Although the collection didn't long survive Giovio's death in 1552 , Cosimo I di Medici had copies of the portraits made (housed in the Uffizi in Florence), along with other sets of copies made for Ferdinand II, archduke of the Tyrol, and for cardinal Federico Borromeo.

 Frontispieces within historiated woodcut borders, full-page woodcut of Giovio's tomb, portrait of the author on verso of dedication; 128 half-page woodcut portraits within varying historiated borders; 10 borders without portraits (as issued)


[8], 391, [17] pages, including final blank.

bound with his:

Elogia virorum literis illustrium.

(2 works in one volume)

Title within woodcut historiated  border; portrait of the author; 62 half-page portraits within varying historiated borders, including a second portrait of the author at the end

Historiated initials throughout.

[12], 235 pages.

Folio: 9 by 14"

Bound in full hand tooled pigskin. Manuscript title to the spine.

Very good interior condition except missing 2 leaves (p. 255/256 and 261/262)

Minor foxing, some wear of binding with repair to the upper end of the spine.

Text in Latin

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Paolo Giovio (also spelled Paulo Jovio; Latin: Paulus Jovius; 1483 –  1552) was an Italian physician, historian, biographer, and prelate.
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