BUONFIGLIO E COSTANZO, Giuseppe.
FROM THE LIBRARY OF ANDREW FLETCHER OF SALTOUN
Prima parte [-seconda parte] dell’historia Siciliana.
Venice, Appresso Bonifacio Ciera, 1604.£2,950.00
FIRST EDITION. 4to. pp. (xlviii) 692. Italic letter. T-p with engraved emblematical printer’s device, full-page engraved author’s portrait and arms within strapwork border, very good, strong impressions. Woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. T-p and final leaf dusty. Tiny wormtrack to blank gutter to first few quires. Light waterstain to lower blank margin, occasionally touching catchwords, diminishing, little light waterstain and tiny wormtrack to blank outer corner of a few quires at centre, quires Bb-Dd with light waterstains to blank upper corner and outer margin, light waterstains to upper margin and lower outer corner of final two quires, affecting a few lines. A good, unsophisticated copy in original vellum, soiled, upper joint cracking. Autograph of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1655-1716) to t-p, marks in ms. to pastedowns.
First edition of this history of Sicily by the Sicilian-born soldier and native of Messina Giuseppe Buonfiglio et Costanzo (1547-1622), from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1655-1716), the great Scottish bibliophile, politician and adventurer. This edition is divided into two parts, beginning with Sicily’s mythical origins and ending with the Turkish wars and the loss of Buda to the Ottomans in 1541; a third part was added by Buonfiglio in 1613. Andrew Fletcher claimed (dubiously) to have fought against the Turks during the recapture of Buda by Imperial troops in 1684. At the end is Buonfiglio’s funerary oration for King Philip II of Spain, and his description of the miraculous deliverance of Messina from a terrible famine in 1603.
Buonfiglio begins with the mythical origins of the island: its separation from the mainland and its imprisonment of the Titans or giants, its population of Cyclops and Laestrygonians, descendants of Poseidon, as well as Scylla and Charybdis. He discusses descriptions of the island by ancient geographers and historians including Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Thucydides, Tacitus, etc. However, these ancient and mythical accounts are intended simply to colour what is one of the earliest attempts to systematically describe the island, with numerical figures giving the populations of various towns and comprehensive lists describing the make-up of Sicilian society: ecclesiastical figures, noblemen, knights and other soldiers, magistrates, and their legal jurisdictions, etc.
Buonfiglio’s account was influenced by his municipal pride, Messina featuring prominently in his narrative. The first part of the history describes the settlement of the island by the ancient Greeks, and the subsequent conquests by the Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Saracens, Normans, Hohenstaufens – with the revolt of Ruggiero Mastrangelo, called the Sicilian Vespers – and finally the Spanish. The second part is more of a European history, describing the Italian Wars and conflicts in Germany and the Netherlands, as well as the Ottoman incursions into Europe. Buonfiglio’s account is derived from personal experience: he served with distinction in the wars in the Netherlands, fighting on the Spanish side, and in 1595, when Messina was threatened by an Ottoman fleet commanded by Sinan Pasha, was given command of a small force to repel them.
BM STC It. C17 I, p. 162. Mira I, p. 136. Not in Blackmer.In stock
