Opere [Les Oeuvres]
First original collective edition of the Opere di Machiavelli.
A very fine copy preserved in its contemporary ivory vellum binding.
5 volumes in 1 quarto, full ivory vellum with overlapping edges. Contemporary binding.
218 x 166 mm.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. All the works of Niccolo Machiavelli, citizen and secretary of Florence, divided into five parts, and newly reprinted with utmost accuracy.
S. l., (Geneva, Pietro Aubert), 1550.
Highly sought-after first collective edition of Machiavelli’s Works, known as “alla testina.”
“Gamba describes, in his ‘Serie des testi’, five editions of Machiavelli issued under the date 1550; but of these five editions, only the first two have pagination matching the citations of the La Crusca vocabulary, and are therefore the ones collectors should pursue. Here is the description of the first: it begins with a general title page, followed by the ‘Table of Works’ and Clement VII's privilege to Blado; then comes: 1° the ‘Histories,’ 351 pages preceded by 4 separate leaves; 2° ‘The Prince,’ 116 pages preceded by 2 unnumbered leaves; 3° the ‘Discourses’, ending on page 304 and preceded by 8 separately numbered leaves; 4° the ‘Art of War,’ 168 pages including the half-title; 5° ‘The Golden Ass,’ 170 pages preceded by the half-title. The edition we call the second was copied page by page from the first, but not line by line; among the differences: in the second edition, the first four treatises each have, instead of a half-title, a separate title page with a portrait of Machiavelli and the date 1550, like the general title page; also, the last page of the ‘Art of War’ is numbered 158 instead of 168, and in the same work, on the heading of p.129, ‘Libro sexto’ instead of ‘libro sesto’ can be read.”
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote all 26 chapters of The Prince, his masterpiece, in one go in 1513. His last work, the History of Florence, was begun in 1520 and completed in 1526, with the narrative ending at the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici and the disruption of the Italian political balance.
“His genius shone primarily in his way of handling modern history. By virtue of superiority of intellect, he grasped the true principles of the constitution of states, skillfully uncovered their mechanisms, explained the causes of their revolutions; in short, he blazed a new trail and plumbed all the depths of politics” (Diderot).
