Strada (Jacopo) Imperatorum Romanorum omnium Orientalium et Occidentalium Verissimae Imagines ex Antiquis Numismatis quam Fidelissime Delineatae, first edition, collation: α⁶ A-V⁶, lacking final blank, fine woodcut title, repeated woodcut border to 4 preliminary ff., α6 blank present, 118 superb woodcut medallion portraits by Rudolf Wyssenbach after Rudolf Manuel Deutsch within repeated decorative architectural border, caption beneath, each verso with text and arabesque design by Peter Flötner within same woodcut border as in preliminaries, F4 with clean tear, some slight worming to inner margin, light water-stain at foot to many ff., 19th century sprinkled sheep, a little rubbed, modern cloth slip-case, folio (473 x 359mm.), Zurich, Andreas Gessner, 1559.

***A lovely copy with rich impressions of one of the great Renaissance illustrated books, describing the medals in the collection of Jacopo Strada, an antiquary from Mantua. Strada (d.1588), a goldsmith who had studied antique coins and medals, had a successful career in the service of three Habsburg emperors whom he served as artist and advisor on the acquisition of antiquities. He was also supervisor of the imperial Schatzkammer.

Provenance: Nordkirchen, Ferdinand von Plettenberg (his inscription on title); Nordkirchen, Esterházy de Galántha (bookplate, the family owned Nordkirchen Castle from 1833 to 1903); Schweinfurt, Otto Schäfer collection (OS 51), acquired in 1955 from W. Heimann through Adalbert Lauter, Munich.

Literature: Adams S1919; Mortimer, French 502 (note); Goldschmidt, The Printed Book of the Renaissance, 1950, p. 76