Stefano DELLA BELLA

Descrizione delle feste fatte in Firenze per le reali nozze de Serenissimi Sposi Ferdinando II, Gran Duca di Toscana, e Vittoria Principessa d'Urbino. By Ferdinando Bardi. 56 pp.  Illustrated with a large fold-out plate (400 x 500 mm sheet size, 325 x 440 mm plate size) by Stefano Della Bella.  Small 4to., 220 x 165 mm, bound in 18th century brocade paper over boards.  In Fiorenza: per Zanobi Pignoni, 1637.

First Edition of this festival book celebrating the marriage of Ferdinand II and Victoria of Urbino in Florence in 1637.  The festivities featured an equestrian ballet adapted by the Bali Fernando Saracinelli from Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata with choreography by Agnolo Ricci and here captured in the fold-out plate brilliantly designed and illustrated by Stefano Della Bella (1610-1664). 

Rare at auction (not in the Gourary Sale) with OCLC finding just 5 copies in the US.

A fine copy handsomely bound in a slightly later brocade paper binding of gold and purple with a floral motif.  The foldout plate has a few professional paper repairs where the stub meets the sheet with the print remaining in fine condition. 

PROVENANCE: Comte De Saluces with printed bookplate on the front paste-down.

De Vesme-Massar, Peitre-graveur Italien, no. 50.  Nagler, Theatre festivals of the Medici, pp 173-4. Vinet 611.