Author: GAGLIARDELLI, Salvadore.
Title: Soprascritte di lettere in forma cancelleresca, corsiva, appartenenti ad ogni grado di persona; date in luce in tal carattero per commune utilità degli studiosi della buona forma dello scrivere, ... Con l'aggiunta di questa seconda stampa, come à piè della tavola si dice.Florence, for the author, [1583]. Oblong 4to (20.5 x 25.5 cm). With the title in an elaborate 4-piece woodcut border. 19th-century blue half calf.
Description: [48], [144] pp.Very rare enlarged second edition of a writing master’s copybook by the Italian writing master Salvadore Gagliardelli, giving 8 full-page and 269 half-page writing examples: openings of letters to several important political, military, ecclesiastical and legal persons, such as the pope, cardinals, (arch)bishops, emperors, kings, queens and lawyers, but also for example to physicians, painters, sculptors, fathers, mothers, widows and friends. This writing book therefore teaches not only the correct way of addressing the dignitaries of the church and the state, but it also how to address people in a certain profession, friends, family, or just someone in the neighbourhood. All 277 examples are written in a neat chancery cursive: the style introduced by Giovan Francesco Cresci in his 1560 Essemplare di più sorti lettere. The 8 full-page examples include larger interlaced initials and interlaced decorations at the foot, which have no precedent in Cresci’s Essemplare. Gagiardelli’s present copybook was highly successful because it met a definite need in a status-conscious age. This second edition was augmented in the same year as the first edition and both are very rare.With the bookplate of the famous book collector Hippolyte Destailleur on the front paste-down and some manuscript writing exercises in the last three woodcut-cartouches after number 269. Binding slightly rubbed, corners a little bit bumped, some spotting, some leaves are repaired, but still in good condition.l Berlin Kat. 5192 (incompl.: examples 1-260); Bonacini 653; Casamassima XVIII, p. 94; EDIT 16, CNCE 74366 (2 copies); A.F. Johnson, “A catalogue of Italian writing books”, in: Signature, n.s. 10 (1950), pp. 22-48, at p. 43 (3 copies, including 1 lost & 1 with variants); Damascène Morgand, Catalogue de livres rares et précieux ... Hippolyte Destailleur (13-25 April 1891), lot 867 (this copy); Morison, Early Italian writing books, pp. 123-124; Osley, Luminario, p. 99 and fig. 69; USTC 831346 (1 copy).

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