ROSACCIO, Giusppe.

A lovely sammelband of rare scientific works by the Italian cosmographer, geographer, physician, astrologer and traveller Giuseppe Rosaccio (c.1530-c.1620). Rare fourth ed. of first work, first pub. 1592; third ed. of second, first pub. 1593; extremely rare third ed. of third, first pub. 1593; and extremely rare second ed. of fourth, first published 1594.

The first work, charmingly illustrated, is a geographical and astronomical texts describing the earthly and heavenly spheres, with lunar tables. The characterful maps depict the major continents with their chief cities, mountain ranges, rivers and lakes, with occasional fanciful depictions of tribal tents, trading vessels, hippocampi and giant sea fish. Australia and New Guinea are depicted as one contiguous land mass with Antarctica, with trees and shrubs, fierce-looking mountains and even what appear to be subterranean fires.

The second work is a cosmographical history of the world, beginning with the creation to the age of the biblical patriarchs and Noah’s Flood, 1656 years, and running to the modern day, with dates of the elections of popes, reigns of kings and queens, battles and extraordinary astrological, meteorological and medical phenomena, freakish births, etc. The third contains a brief discourse on the nature of time, preceding tables of astrological ephemerides describing the movements of the moon, sun and planets: the lunar and solar tables cover the years 1594-1612 but the planetary table – showing which planets will govern fertility or sterility in which year – runs to 1705. The final work is a brief philosophical and medical treatise on the perfect nature and proportions of man, which ends with a brief annual regimen of diet, bathing and exercise for preserving good health: no honey in February, sweets and sweet wines in March, don’t wash your head in January or October, etc.

Originally from Pordenone, Rosaccio was an itinerant philosopher who moved around the noble courts of Italy and travelled to Constantinople. He spent time in Venice and then from the 1590s was based permanently in Florence, ‘healing the sick and selling elixirs [and presumably these tracts] from a market stall set up in a square outside the grand ducal palace’ (Edina Adam, ‘The Personification of Venice’ in Master Drawings, 55. 3 (2017), p. 313). It was during this period that he also published several separate planispheres and maps.