ACCADEMIA VENETA. Orationes clarorum hominum, vel honoris officiique causa ad principes, vel in funere de virtutibus eorum habitae.

Quarto (200 × 143 mm.). [8], 176 [i.e. 174], [2] leaves, with the five blanks. Title page with the Accademia's device. Provenance: “Colleg. Paris Societ. Jesu.” and “Nicolaus Noguette literarum in collegio ludovici Magni Professor” (manuscript annotations on title page); Paolino Gerli, Giorgio Di Veroli, Gianni De Marco (three ex-libris). Modern red morocco binding; cover with triple fillet frame, spine in five compartments with gilt title, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. Spine lightly worn, small tears on *3 and Aa1, a very good copy.

Très rare (Renouard) collection of speeches by some of the most renowned scholars and poets of Italian Renaissance: among the others, Pietro Bembo, Tito Vespasiano Strozzi, Angelo Poliziano, Ermolao Barbaro, Marco Antonio Sabellico, Giovanni Battista Ramusio. It was printed by the Accademia Veneta, a short-lived cultural institution: founded in 1558, and financed, by Federico Badoer (1519-1593), the son of an important Venetian politician, it was shut down after only three years of activity, as Badoer was arrested for debts; it consisted of one hundred members and its chancellor was the humanist Bernardo Tasso. The printing press, an essential part in Badoer's cultural project, was directed by the sons of Paolo Manuzio, using their father's types.

BMSTC 717; Renouard I p. 319; S. Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia, VI pp. 457- 458, Venice 1857.