CASA, Giovanni della
TRANSLATED BY AN ENGLISH RECUSANT
Galatheus, sive de moribus.
Rome, Apud Dominicum Giliottum, 1595.£1,500.00
FIRST EDITION thus. 8vo. ll. (iv) 128. Roman letter. T-p with woodcut printer’s device. Woodcut initials, woodcut and typographical headpieces. Single contemp. ms. addition to A1r. Later inscription to t-p, ‘I.A.C.’ Small ink stain to lower outer blank corner of t-p and next few ll., central tear to A5 without loss, little browning, the odd marginal ink smudge or light spot. A very good, unsophisticated copy in the original vellum, spine overlaid with early vellum, ms. title.
Rare first edition in Latin of Giovanni della Casa’s (1503-56) Galathea, a treatise on morals and human behaviour, first published in Italian in 1558. The translator was an English recusant in exile in Italy, Nicholas Fitzherbert (1550-1612). Della Casa is interested in those aspects of human behaviour that make a society ‘urbane’ or civilised, including clothing – especially the ornate clothing of women by their husbands – and ceremonies, which are divided into useful, vain and ‘official.’ Behaviours described include sleeping habits and language, della Casa praising staid and rational conversation while censuring excessive laughter. He is suspicious of joking in general. This is also a treatise on aesthetics, della Casa considering the nature of beauty.
Fitzherbert was grandson of the great English jurist Anthony Fitzherbert. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford in 1571, but quickly went abroad, studying at Douai and Bologna. In his absence two Catholic priests were discovered at the family home in Staffordshire and executed. Settling in Rome, Fitzherbert became secretary to the English cardinal William Allen (1532-94) and opposed Robert Persons (1546-1610) over plans for the Jesuit mission in England. He drowned while crossing a river near Florence. This is his only literary work; he also published a history of the University of Oxford.
OCLC notes copies at Folger and UCLA in the US.
Gillow II, p. 283. Not in Allison & Rogers, Southern or Adams. BM STC It., p. 152. EDIT16 CNCE 16502. USTC 826278.