First edition, in the original Italian, of a classic account of the history and science of Renaissance art and artists: "the first art treatise specifically directed towards a lay audience" (Ellis, p. 2). Written by Raffaele Borghini (1537-1588), a Florentine poet and art historian, the work is an important record of the Counter-Reformation views of art, contesting Vasaris positive view of Mannerism, and includes a philosophical background on the merits of painting and sculpture, technical information, art theoretical criteria and their art critical application, and an art historical survey.
In the text, Borghini recounts, supplements and criticises the work of Vasari in four "libri", using the literary form of a dialogue held during a day of "otium" (leisure) spent at the villa "Il Reposo" of a noble art collector near Florence, Bernardo Vecchietti. It discusses his rich collection, which included drawings by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and paintings by Botticelli, Antonello da Messina and various Flemish artists, giving a lively view of the Florentine art world of the period. One room was dedicated to the works of Giambologna, whose biography is related here for the first time. Vecchietti also possessed natural history and curiosity cabinets or Wunderkammern.
Borghettis account of art theory largely follows Vasari, but adds an account of perspective. It also discusses the superiority of the figurative arts. In the third book, the sculptor Ridolfo Sirigatti talks about art technique, also discussing the principles of art and perspective using Florences public works of art as examples. Borghini gives much new and reliable information on contemporary artists, both Florentine and "foreign" (especially Venetian), including Tintoretto, Veronese, Barocci and others. Borghini addresses himself to the noble man of leisure and the art collector as a great art critic eminently suited to the task and a man of fine taste. No further edition appeared until 1730 (Florence, with notes by Bottari), but further editions followed in 1785/87 (Siena), 1807 (Milan) and later. Today it is acknowledged as one of the great classics of the history and science of art. An annotated but abridged English translation appeared in 2007.
With a few contemporary annotations, and an early owners name struck through and erased on the title page. From the collection of Count Giacomo Manzoni (1816-1889) in Milan, with his small armorial bookplate on the front paste-down, recorded in the 1893 auction catalogue of his library, and with the purchasers name C. R[?]oebel and price on a free endleaf. Washed, with the cartouche of the allegorical woodcut shaved at the fore-edge and with an occasional minor and usually marginal stain, but otherwise in very good condition. An essential source for any study of art history and especially of the formation of standards of taste among art collectors. Adams B2495; Cicognara 22117; EDIT 16, 7120; Gamba, Testi lingua Italiana (1839), 241; Cat. Jacques Manzoni II (1893), 4443 (this copy); Moreni, Bibl. Toscana I, p. 149; Razzolini, Bibl. testi lingua a stampa (1878), p. 71; Schlosser, Littérature artistique (1984), p. 376; STC Italian p. 120; USTC 816377; Verga, Bibl. Vinciana, 124; cf. Lloyd H. Ellis, introduction to Raffaello Borghini, Il riposo (2007), pp. 1-39.