# Pauli Iovii Novocomensis libellus de legatione Basilii magni principis Moschoviae ad Clemente[m]. VII. Pont. Max.

**Autore:** Giovio Paolo
**Dati Editoriali:** Rome, Francesco Minizio Calvo, 1525
**Codice Archivio:** 130
**Prezzo:** 8700 USD
**Stato Commerciale:** Disponibile
**Link Ufficiale Collezione:** https://www.govirarebooks.com/products/giovio-paolo-libellus-de-legatione-1525

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## Descrizione Accademica e Analisi
4to (208x145 mm). [20] leaves. Collation: A-E4. Title page within an elaborate woodcut border featuring the printer’s device at the bottom. Colophon on l. E3v. Roman and italic types. Contemporary cardboards “alla rustica” with parchment reinforcements on the spine (worn, losses to spine, slightly soiled). Some light marginal staining and foxing, overall a good, genuine copy with wide margins. Provenance. On the title page ownership entry “Aureliae Gabiae”. Aurelia Gabbia Abbagara (1546-1609), a female scholar and printer renowned in early seventeenth century Rome for her extraordinary linguistic and mathematical skills, was related to the Armenian Abgar family. In 1593 Aurelia appears in the recordings of the notary Giovanni Prisco Giovenali on the occasion of the sale of a typography in her possession to Giovanni Stefano Scorza, for the sum of 500 scudi. According to the document, Aurelia worked as a “stampatrix” in via del Crocifisso and she was the widow of the “quondam March’Antonio Abbagaro”. A tombstone with a portrait and a commemorative Latin inscription dedicated to her is located inside the church of Santa Maria Egiziaca (the Temple of Portunus) in Rome (cf. C. Santus, New Documents on the Armenian Presence and Printing Activity in Early Modern Rome: Marco Antonio Abagaro (Sult‘anšah), Bartolomeo Abagaro and the “Typographia Gabiana”, in: “Revue des Études Arméniennes”, 2022, pp. 195-223). Her father was Giovan Battista Gabia (d. 1590). Born in Verona in the early 16th century, he was professor of Greek at the University of Rome from around 1553 until 1582. Alongside teaching, he was also active as a translator and editor of Greek and Hebrew texts (cf. E. Del Gallo, Gabia, Giovan Battista, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 51, 1998, s.v.). Rare first edition, dedicated by the author to the Archbishop of Cosenza, Giovanni Ruffo de Theodoli (d. 1527), of the first Western account of Russia. The work was reprinted by Froben in Basel in 1527. It was then translated twice into Italian: the first translation was printed by Imperatore in Venice in 1545, the second appeared in the second volume of Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s Navigationi e Viaggi (1559). It was also included in the collection Novus orbis regionum (1532) and Rerum moscovitarum auctores varii published in 1600. On title-page verso are three poems by Girolamo Delio degli Alessandri, Giano Vitale, and Pietro Corsi. On l. E3r is a poem by Benedetto Lampridio (1478-1540). In Vitale’s poem and on l. A2v there are references to a map of Moschovia, that is today known in only two copies. “The first printed map carrying name ‘Moschovia’ in its title was compiled in Rome in 1525 by Paolo Giovio (1483-1552). He announced it in Libellus de legatione Basilii magni (Rome, 1525), a book he published based on his conversations with Dimitri Gerasimov, an envoy to Pope Clement VII from Grand Duke Vassily III of Moscow. The map’s importance transcends Muscovy, extending to the other medieval Rusian states: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Novgorod Republic, the lands of the sedentary and nomadic successors of the Mongol Empire (Tartaria), as well as the modern states of Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and the Russian Federation. For a long time, only several manuscript renditions of the 1525 map were known issued in 1550s by the Venetian mapmaker Battista Agnese, while the printed version was presumed lost. An article in Imago Mundi Vol.72:1 (2020) reported the discovery of an original imprint of the 1525 map back in 2006 at Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. In fact, this was the second known imprint of the map. The first one was sold on December 7, 1993, by Sotheby’s in London and subsequently made its way to the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) in Moscow (D.A. Khotimsky, The two surviving copies of the 1525 Moscovia map by Paolo Giovio: A comparative study, in: “Conflict & Cartography. The 29th International Conference on the History of Cartography”, Bucharest, 2022). Dmitry Gerasimov, ambassador of Grand Duke Vasily III Ivanovich, arrived in Rome in June 1525. During his two-month stay, he was entertained and interviewed by Paolo Giovio on behalf of Clement VII. The Libellus is therefore the result of those conversations and was published for the occasion as a true “instant book.” In the history of relations between the Russian world and Western Europe, the years in which this mission took place represent a joint effort to bring the Principality of Muscovy and the Holy See closer together - no longer merely from an anti-Turkish perspective, but now also from an anti-Protestant standpoint, in line with the policy pursued since 1518 by Emperor Maximilian I, who sponsored the dispatch of ambassadors Sigmund von Herberstein (1516) and Francesco Da Collo (1518-1519) and supported the peace agreement between the Prince of Muscovy and the King of Poland. These were situations and events that had been unfolding for over a decade and had already aroused Giovio’s interest as early as 1514, when he devoted a section of the first book he wrote for the Historiae to the Russo-Polish War, a topic he later briefly revisited in the historical-political conclusion of the Libellus, dedicated to the major political and military events of the reign of Basil III. It can therefore be said that the reason for the Muscovite ambassador’s visit to Rome was, in essence and primarily, linked to current political events. The Libellus, which originated as a diplomatic account, subsequently gained popularity as a geographical text thanks to its inclusion, as mentioned above, in famous travel anthologies of the time (I. Melani, “Venire a unirsi con esso noi nelle cose della fede”. Un vescovo, un papa, un ambasciatore e “un re di nome non finto”. La Moscovia di Paolo Giovio e la sua tradizione ramusiana, in: “Paradigmi dello sguardo. Percezioni, descrizioni, costruzioni e ricostruzioni della Moscovia tra Medioevo ed Età moderna (Uomini, Merci, Culture)”, Viterbo, 2011, pp. 109-130). Paolo Giovio was born in Como. Because of his father’s early death, Paolo was brought up by his brother, Benedetto, himself a writer of distinction, of whom he speaks with admiration and affectionate gratitude. He took his degree in medicine at Pavia and at first yielded to his brother's kindly insistence that he should justify the expense of his training by practicing that profession, although he was already secretly bent on a literary career. Benedetto’s historical works on Como and the Swiss had excited his rivalry and such scholars as Pomponazzi, whom he heard at Padua, and Lodovico Celio and Giasone Maino at Pavia and Milan had increased his enthusiasm for letters. When, therefore, an outbreak of the plague drove him to Rome (probably about 1516), he found himself free to follow his inclination and he devoted himself to the writing of history. His ready tongue and pen quickly won the favor of Leo X, who thought (or at least said) that his History of His Own Times was second only to Livy. Leo gave him the rank of cavaliere with a pension. Hadrian VI made him canon of the cathedral of Como, remarking that it was a point in his favor that he was no poet. All the Medici were his friends, “by far the surest and strongest safeguards of my life and studies”. He was the constant companion of Clement VII with rooms in the Vatican and when that unhappy pontiff fled for his life during the sack of Rome, it was Giovio who flung his own purple cloak over the Pope’s too conspicuous white robes. His devotion was rewarded the next year by the bishopric of Nocera. Later, in 1530, we find him accompanying Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici to Bologna for the coronation of Charles V and in 1533 to Marseilles for the marriage of Catherine de’ Medici. The Roman Academy had welcomed him with enthusiasm and scholars had honored him with the dedications of their works. Until the fall of Rome his fortunes had prospered. In that catastrophe he lost many of his possessions including some of his manuscripts and retired for a time to the island of Ischia to bewail his calamities. His reputation, too, had begun to wane. The acclaim with which his writings had been received was gradually tempered by the suspicion that his talents were at the service of the highest bidder. Some of the talk was probably, as he would have us believe, the result of ignorance and envy, but his extravagant eulogy of the infamous Alessandro de’ Medici and his careless frankness as to his own attitude toward the subjects of his biographies certainly support the charges. Still he continued to find supporters. For twenty years he enjoyed the favor of Pompeo Colonna and among others to whom he owed benefits and encouragement were the Marquis of Pescara and his wife Vittoria Colonna, Ippolito d’Este, Isabella d’Este, the Marquis of Vasto, Giberti, and Ottavio Farnese. With the accession of Paul III, however, he fell out of favor at the Vatican. Unsuccessful in his efforts to induce the Pope to make him bishop of Como and disappointed in his hopes of a cardinal’s hat, he finally retired to Como and then to Florence, where he died on December 11, 1552. He was buried in San Lorenzo and his statue still guards the stairs that lead to the Laurentian library. Probably the occupation that gave Giovio most pleasure in his later years was the building and furnishing of the villa on Lake Como, where he collected the portraits of famous men, princes, soldiers, prelates, and scholars. Some of the portraits were originals, some were copied from statues, busts, or paintings. They are now scattered and only a few remain in the possession of his family. The copies made by order of Cosimo I may be seen in the Uffizi. Though Giovio left instructions in his will that not so much as a nail should be removed, Boldoni in his Larius (1617) laments the almost complete ruin of the villa. Whatever may be thought of his sincerity, as a writer Giovio commands our interest. If he is far from being Livy's equal, he shares with his greater countryman the “pictured page”. His work and letters are full of vivid descriptions, many of them those of an eye-witness, e.g. the horrors of the sack of Rome, the passionate scenes on the election of Hadrian VI, the plundering of his native Como by the troops of Pescara (cf. T.C. Price Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio, Princeton, 1995, passim; and B. Agosti, Paolo Giovio. Uno storico lombardo nella cultura artistica del Cinquecento, Florence, 2008, passim).

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## Bibliografia di Riferimento
Edit 16, CNCE21144; Adams, G-633; USTC, 833141.

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