SARPI, Paolo

Opere Varie del Molto Reverendo Padre F. Paolo Sarpi dell'ordine de'servi di Maria Teologo Consultore della Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia divise in due tomii

Helmstat: Per Jacopo Mulleri, 1750. Folio (39cm). Two volumes in contemporary parchment over boards, ms title on brown spine labels, all edges sprinkled red; plain endpapers; vol. I: [iv],[144],406pp; vol. II: [iv],416pp; frontispiece portrait and engraved decorative headpieces in vol. I, relief decorative capitals and tailpieces in both vols. Title page printed in two colors. Ex-library, with stamps endpapers and titlepages, shelfmarks to spines. Complete and sound, with minor general wear adn dirt, vol. II lacking spine label, dampstaining to lower margin of vol. I not affecting text, largely internally clean: around Very Good.

Italian edition of the works of Venetian historian Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623), with a false Helmstat (Helmstedt) imprint. Sarpi was an early advocate for the separation of church and state at a time when the debate over papal power "was still a pressing issue, and the boundaries between religion and politics were undefined" (Riverso 314). He wrote fervently in support of Republican Venice during the Venetian papal interdict of 1606-7. Later, his detailed History of the Council of Trent became a touchstone in arguments against papal supremacy--especially in England, where its first edition appeared in 1619 (Yates; Riverso 302). Overall, he was possibly "the most frequently translated Italian writer" of his era (Riverso 298), with influence on the Protestant Reformation and the American Founding Fathers: his writing on Republican Venice was quoted familiarly by John Adams in correspondence with Thomas Jefferson.

See Nicla Riverso, "Paolo Sarpi: The Hunted Friar and his Popularity in England," Annalli d'Italianistica vol. 34 (2016); and Frances A. Yates, "Paolo Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 7 (1944).

Price: $850.00

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