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One of the most influential works of mythological commentary of the 16th and 17th centuries

CARTARI, Vincenzo [& Antoine du VERDIER].
Imagines deorum, qui ab dntiquis colebantur: In quibus simulacra, ritus, caerimoniae, magnaque, ex parte veterum religio explicatur: Olim a Vincentio Chartario Rhegiensi ex variis auctoribus in unum collectae, atque in Italica lingua expositae: nunc vero ad communem omnium utilitatem Latino sermone ab Ant. Verderio  domino Vallisprivatae, &c. expressae, atque in meliorem ordinem digestae. Quibus acc. duo Indices: prior, imaginum: posterior, rerum atque verborum, quae toto libro continentur.

With woodcut publisher's device on title, full-page woodcut portrait of Antoine du Verdier within richly ornamented architectural Renaissance border, small woodcut illustration and 89 large beautiful woodcuts (130 x 95 mm) of mythological classical Gods and Heroes in text.

With woodcut publisher's device on title, full-page woodcut portrait of Antoine du Verdier within richly ornamented architectural Renaissance border, small woodcut illustration and 89 large beautiful woodcuts (130 x 95 mm) of mythological classical Gods and Heroes in text.

With woodcut publisher's device on title, full-page woodcut portrait of Antoine du Verdier within richly ornamented architectural Renaissance border, small woodcut illustration and 89 large beautiful woodcuts (130 x 95 mm) of mythological classical Gods and Heroes in text.

With woodcut publisher's device on title, full-page woodcut portrait of Antoine du Verdier within richly ornamented architectural Renaissance border, small woodcut illustration and 89 large beautiful woodcuts (130 x 95 mm) of mythological classical Gods and Heroes in text.

With woodcut publisher's device on title, full-page woodcut portrait of Antoine du Verdier within richly ornamented architectural Renaissance border, small woodcut illustration and 89 large beautiful woodcuts (130 x 95 mm) of mythological classical Gods and Heroes in text.



Lyons, Guichardus Iullieron for Stephanus Michaelis (Etienne Michel), 1581. 4to. Modern vellum, ribbed spine with title in ink. With woodcut publisher's device on title, full-page woodcut portrait of Antoine du Verdier within richly ornamented architectural Renaissance border, small woodcut illustration and 89 large beautiful woodcuts (130 x 95 mm) of mythological classical Gods and Heroes in text. (8), 359, (57) pp.

First edition of the translation into Latin a famous manual on the imagery of the classical Gods and Heroes, first published in Italian, still without illustrations, in Venice in 1556, and intended as a source book for artists. The present Latin edition, translated and edited by Antoine du Verdier (1544-1600), who also made a French translation, is dedicated to Henricus Memmius, dated 1581. According to the colophon, the book was printed by Guichardus Jullieron who printed both the Latin and French translations simultaneously for two Lyons publishers, for Estienne Michel, our book, and for Bartholomeus Honorat, both in 1581. The privilege, granted jointly to the two publishers, is dated April 7, 1581. The book includes a compendium of the various images of the gods (p. [2-26]) and an index (p. [27-56]) at the end, and Errata on p. [57].
While Vincenzo Cartari's book Imagini delli Dei de gl'Antichi ('Images of the Gods of the Ancients') was not the earliest treatise on the Græco-Roman pantheon to be published in 16th-century Italy, in time it came to be the most popular and influential. The book focused on the iconography of the gods, explaining the guises in which they were portrayed, and detailing their several attributes and accoutrements. The book's success was bolstered by the vivid woodcut illustrations accompanying the text, which first appeared in its third edition, published in Venice in 1571. The designs are said to be by one Bolognino Zaltieri. The woodcut illustrations in our edition are freely copied, slightly reduced and sometimes in reverse, after the engravings made by Bolognino Zaltieri for the third Italian edition, published Giordani Ziletti at Venice in 1571. The French woodcutters especially took care to add drapery for the male parts which were too openly exposed in the Italian models.
The 32 16th- and 17th-century editions (18 Italian, 5 Latin, 6 French, 1 German and a free paraphrase in English) testify of the immense popularity of the work all over Europe. Both Robert Burton and Sir Thomas Browne cite Cartari as an authority on classical mythology.    

Good copy.- (Some faint browning and foxing).
Baudrier, Bibliogr. Lyonnaise, IV, p. 139; Ind. Aur. 132.724;  Harvard (French), 129 (Honorat imprint); Praz, p. 298 ('not an emblem book'); Adams, C 785; STC French p. 92; Caterine Volpi, Le imagini degli dei di Vincenzo Cartari (1996); see also: J. Seznec, The survival of pagan gods; the mythological tradition and its place in renaissance, humanism and art (1953), pp. 219-323, reproductions. 

Related Subjects: 16th Century  Classical Antiquity  Mythology  Woodcuts 

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