De la institutione di tutta la vita de l'huomo nato nobile, e in citta libera, libri. X. in lingua toscana. Dove e peripateticamente e Platonicamente, intorno à le cose de l'ethica, iconomica, e parte de la Politica, e raccolta la somma di quanto principalmente può concorrere à la perfetta e felice vita di quello. Composti dal S. Alessandro Piccolomini, a benefitio del Nobilissimo Fanciullino Alessandro Colombini, pochi giorni innanzi nato, figlio de la Immortale Mad. Laudomia Forteguerri al quale, (havendolo egli sostenuto a battesimo) secondo l'usanza de i Compari, de i detti Libri fa dono. M.D.XLIII

FOR THE EDUCATION OF LAUDOMIA FORTEGUERRI'S SON

8vo (152x101 mm). [8], 271, [1 blank] leaves. Collation: *⁸ A-LL⁸. Italic type. Blank spaces for capitals, with printed guide letters. Contemporary flexible vellum, inked title along the spine (darkened and soiled, traces of ties, lacking the back endleaf). Some marginal staining on a few leaves at the beginning of the volume, otherwise a very good, extremely genuine copy.

Second edition, dedicated by the author to Laudomia Forteguerri dei Colombini (from Padua, 1^st January 1540), of this classic of pedagogical literature.

Divided into ten books, the treatise is a sort of vernacular compendium of the Renaissance gentleman's ideal cursus written in the form of a manual of moral philosophy. Heavily influenced by the Aristotle's Ethics and, to a lesser extent, by his Rhetoric, it was conceived for the education of the dedicatee's son. It also contains parts on household administration and an extensive discussion of love theory. First printed in Venice by Girolamo Scoto in 1542 and then reprinted several times, the work was expanded and published under a different title (L'institutione morale) in 1560 also at Venice by Giordano Ziletti.

The publication of De la institutione generated strong friction between Piccolomini and Sperone Speroni (1500-1588), who accused Piccolomini of plagiarizing his dialogues. The points of contact between the two works are indeed many and such as to suggest that Piccolomini had purposely wanted to work on the same themes with the intention to propose an alternative reading to Speroni's, both in terms of content and form, with a preference for the monological treatise over the dialogue form (cf. F. Tomasi, Piccolomini, Alessandro, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 83, 2015, s.v.).

Alessandro Piccolomini was educated in his hometown of Siena, where in 1531 he became a member of the Accademia degli Intronati. In 1538 he moved to Padua to complete his studies under Vincenzo Maggi and Federico Delfino. During his stay in Padua he was appointed lecturer in moral philosophy. After a brief stay in Bologna (1542-‘43), where he was able to attend the lectures by Ludovico Boccadiferro, he returned to Siena. From 1546 to 1558 he worked in Rome in the papal curia. Back to Siena, he took the orders and in 1574 was appointed archbishop of Patras. He continued to reside in the Tuscan city, where he died in 1579. Piccolomini was above all an esteemed commentator on and translator of Aristotle, but he also distinguished himself for several successful literary and theatrical works (L'Amor costante, 1540; L'Alessandro, 1545; Cento sonetti, 1549; L'Hortensio, 1571), in which he was able to put the precepts of Aristotelian poetics into practice with good originality and creativity. He also published what is regarded as the first star atlas (De la sfera del mondo together with Dele stelle fisse, 1540) and the Dialogo de la bella creanza delle donne (1539) (cf. F. Cerreta, Alessandro Piccolomini, letterato e filosofo senese del Cinquecento, Siena, 1960)

Edit 16, CNCE47397; Italian books, p. 513; A. Piccolomini, De la institutione di tutta la vita de l'homo nato nobile e in città libera, M.F. D'Amante, ed., Rome, 2018.

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