ELIANO DE' NOMI ET DE GLI ORDINI MILITARI tradotto di Greco per M. Lelio Carani.
[Text in Italian]. Pp. 120 (complete by signatures, but with considerable mispagination at the end), printer's device on title page, text diagrams (tactical formations and drills); f'cap. 8vo; later (not recent) full vellum, titled by hand, slightly soiled; all edges mottled red; coloured patterned endpapers, with the armorial bookplate of Lord Wolseley on the upper pastedown and the later bookplate of David Levine, Sydney, on upper free endpaper, long inked gift inscription to Charles Harry Norman Ashlin 'who did his share of service in Egypt in the late Great War' dated 1930 and initialled 'ELT' on verso of upper free endpaper, earlier ownership inscription (by Wolseley?, dated 1883) on recto of the preliminary blank, another long annotation (apparently by 'ELT', dated 22.1.30) on the final blank (both sides) and recto of lower free endpaper (noting that 'this edition of 1552 is so rare that it was not included in Captain Maurice Cockle's Bibliography of military books'), two short splits to fore-edge of upper free endpaper, the upper hinge tender, scattered light foxing and occasional slight soiling; Lorenzo Torrentino, Florence, 1552. *An early translation into a vernacular language of Aelian's work on 'military names and orders'. Aelianus Tacticus (c. A.D. 100) is one of the most renowned and trustworthy of the ancient military writers' [Cockle, p. 71]. The translation from the original Greek is by the humanist scholar Lelio Carani, who was active in Florence in the early 1550s. The printer, Lorenzo Torrentino, was Cosimo de Medici's official Ducal Printer. His device features the heraldic shield of the Medici family, including the 'palle' (balls or spheres) and ducal crown. Field Marshall Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833-1913), served in Burma, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, China, Canada and Africa, and was commander-in-chief of the British army from 1895 to 1900. Item #169781
Price: $3,000.00