Florentine armorial manuscript
FLORENCE. Armorial manuscript “Arme de Nobili Fiorentini.”
Florence, ca. 1530
Folio (348 x 224 mm). 58 leaves (116 unnumbered pages) on paper with the watermark of the Sacred Monogram, Briquet 9467, i.e. Vicenza 1527-38. 812 armorial shields in watercolor, seven per page. Late 18th-century calf, black letter spine label. Rubbed, some soiling. Very good condition.
This is a lovely Renaissance manuscript representing the great families of Florence at the height of the Renaissance.
This beautiful manuscript contains 812 hand-colored armorial shields arranged alphabetically from Aldrobradi to Zucharini, with a leaf of additions at the end.
This Renaissance manuscript contains the arms of Florence’s great families including its patrons of the arts, financiers, businessmen, philosophers, and political leaders. The influential names represented here include Medici, Alberti, Da Vinci, Albizzi, Pazzi, Lippi, Strozzi, and hundreds of others. The manuscript contains the arms of the families of Galileo Galilei and of Niccolo Machiavelli, whose history of Florence was written about the time of this creation of this manuscript.
Provenance: Christie’s, March 15, 1995, lot 338.
$25,000