Opere Di Machiavelli.

MACHIAVELLI, Nicolo.

$3,800.00

Item Number: 129048

Firenze: Gaetano Cambiagi, 1782-3.

First Cambiagi edition of the works of Machiavelli, one of the best and most important editions of his works. Quarto, bound in full period vellum with morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, engraved portrait frontispiece of Machiavelli by Gregori after Santi di Tito, large arms of Earl Cowper on each title page, folding plate opposite p. 333 in Vol. II showing the layout of an army camp, another opposite p. 1 in Vol. IV a facsimile letter in Machiavelli’s hand. In very good condition. Rare.

Encouraged by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, this, one of the most important editions of Machiavelli's works, was based on analytical research in Florentine libraries and archives, such as to guarantee great reliability in the philological lesson of the text. Born in the Enlightenment climate of recovery and exaltation of Machiavelli's free thought, it includes a number of previously unpublished works and was the edition that “first spread the news of the translation of The Prince into Ottoman Turkish” (Biasiori and Marcocci, eds., Machiavelli, Islam and the East: Reorienting the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2017, p. 182). The dedication is to patron and art collector George Nassau Clavering Cowper. “The title and property inherited from his father in 1764 helped Cowper gain a position of importance within Florentine society... In 1766 he became a member of the Accademia delle arti del Disegno (known as the Florentine Academy) and two years later he was elected to the Accademia della Crusca” (ODNB).