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First edition of the final four volumes of Italian scholar, political operator and historian Francesco Guicciardini’s Dell’Historia d’Italia. Left unfinished by the author, these four volumes were excluded from the first edition of the history (Florence, 1561) but later edited by his nephew, Angelo, who had also edited the first sixteen volumes. Angelo Giucciardini chose a Venetian printer over the Florentine house that had published the first, longer instalment of the history.

In the prefatory dedication to Cosimo de’ Medici, Angelo Giucciardini writes that the first instalment of the history had generated ‘molto desiderio di vedere questi quattro ultimi’ and claims that the quality and scale of these final volumes renders them even better than the first. All of Giucciardini’s works were published after his death; the Historia and one other work within only a few years, and the remainder only in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1568, Giolito published the twenty volumes of the Historia together in their entirety.

Provenance: Library label on front paste-down of the Dukes of Marlborough. Two ownership notes at head and tail of title page, one annotation in Italian (p.9).

Title page and dedications working loose; foxing and staining throughout, with occasional imperfections to paper and open tear in lower blank margin of p.45, not touching text.

Adams, G1519. BMSTC (Italian), p.321. CNCE 22313.