CONTILE, Luca. Ragionamento di Luca Contile sopra la proprietà delle imprese con le particolari de gli Academici Affidati et con le interpretationi et croniche.

Folio (320 x 220 mm.), [6], 161, [1] leaves; engraved title within an architectural border with a vignette at foot, full-page engraved device of Philip II of Spain, the dedicatee, engraved device of the Accademia degli Affidati, and one hundred and fourteen engraved devices of the members of the Accademia; historiated initials and Cosimo Bartoli's device on the colophon page. The book was initially planned to end on leaf Qq4, but the work was extended to include another 8 leaves (Rr signatures) at the end. The original final leaf Qq4 (which contained the register, errata, and table) was reprinted onto the recto and verso of leaves Rr1 and Rr8, respectively, and leaf Qq4 was to be discarded as in our copy. A few spots, a few pages browned, overall a very good copy in seventeenth century Italian vellum richly gilt.

First edition of one of the most uncommon and beautiful emblem book printed in Renaissance Italy. The work, dedicated to Philip II King of Spain, starts with a very useful general discussion of the imprese and then continues with a detailed discussion of the devices of the members of the Accademia degli Affidati in Pavia. “Contile's Ragionamento, composed for the Accademia degli Affidati (Pavia), was published in 1574. This work is valuable both for its former section, theoretical, and for the latter, illustrated and devoted to the interpretation of a series of imprese belonging to noblemen and members of the accademie. It offers a magnificent exemplification of the role that the Italian accademie, whose members were used to conceive and exhibit imprese as distinctive marks, played in the reflection on the imprese, in their circulation outside the courtesan milieu, in keeping alive the fashion of that witty symbolic form.” (University of Glasgow. The study of italian emblems. 2006) The book is illustrated with full page engraved device of Philip II of Spain showing in the center the planisphere, engraved device of the Accademia degli Affidati and one hundred and fourteen engraved devices of the members of the Accademia. The devices, designed with elaborate borders on the copperplate, include the motto and the academic pseudonym of the owner. Among these devices we should mention Contile's own device and those of Saint Charles Borromeo and Emanuele Filiberto Duke of Savoy.
Luca Contile (Cetona, 1505 – Pavia, 1574) was a poet, playwright and a diplomat. After studying in Siena and Bologna he started working for princes and cardinals; he first was at service of Cardinal Agostino Trivulzio in Rome from 1527 to 1542 where he attended the Accademia della Virtù and met Annibal Caro and Francesco Molza, members of the same academy. Later he was at the service of Alfonso d'Avalos Marquis of Vasto and in 1548 he worked for Ferrante Gonzaga, Governor of Milan, and for the Archbishop of Trento, Cristoforo Madruzzo. After leaving Trento he went to Venice where he entered the Accademia Veneziana and then, in 1560, he returned at the service of Marquis d'Avalos in Milan. Thanks to the recommendation of the Marquis of Pescara he was appointed by the Spanish as commissioner in Pavia, where he remained until his death, dedicating himself to historical studies and actively participating in the Accademia degli Affidati.

EDIT16 - CNCE 13187; Praz, p. 307; Mortimer (it.) 136. Adams C-2588; University of Glasgow, The study of italian emblems, 2006.