Vatican Library .- Pansa (Mutius) Della libraria Vaticana ragionamenti, first edition, woodcut printer's device to title and recto of final f., woodcut samples of Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Phoenician, Etruscan, Armenian, Illyrian, Gothic, Arabic and other alphabets in text, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and historiated and decorative initials, a few ff. browned and some faint foxing, contemporary limp vellum, yapp edges, r.e.g, small 4to, [Adams P172; Cicognara 4662;Mortimer, Italian 353; Edit16 CNCE 29725], Rome, [Giacomo Ruffinelli for] Giovanni Martinelli, 1590.
⁂ Important study of the Vatican library, its rich contents and projects. Includes ancient alphabets, the invention of printing in China, its later discovery by Gutenberg, and the arrival in Italy of the typographers Sweynheim and Pannartz in 1465. The recent establishment of the Vatican Press is also recorded.
Please Login or Register to request further information and images