Convito del primo di d'agosto ove piacevolmente si ragiona in che modo si possano conoscere & emendare gli affetti & vitij dell'animo. [followed by:] Trattato di Galeno

HEALTH ADVICES FOR THE BODY AND SOUL

Two parts in one volume, 8vo (155x95 mm). [8], 61, [3]; 61, [3] pp. Collation: *⁴ a-d⁸; A-D⁸. The second part opens with a separate title page at l. d8r. Printer's device on the first title page with the motto “nisi paret imperat”; woodcut emblem with the same motto on the second title page. Italic, Roman and Greek types. Woodcut historiated initials. Register, colophon and errata on l. D8. Later colored boards, lettering piece on spine (top and bottom of spine damaged, upper joint broken). On the first title page unidentified manuscript coat-of-arms with the initials “M.G.” and the stamp of Francesco Maria Cardelli, who in 1747 by marrying Giustina Pianetti from Jesi obtained the title of Count of Montefiore. With several marginal (partly shaved) and interlinear annotations by a contemporary or slightly later hand. Some marginal foxing, two small holes to the gutter of the first two leaves not affecting the text, all in all a good copy.

Rare first edition dedicated by the author to cardinal Alfonso Carafa (1540-1565), grandnephew of Pope Paul IV, who in the dedication letter is described as the living example (“la vera Idea”) of all the health recommendations for the body and the soul contained in the book (E. Andretta, Medici e potenti nella Roma del XVI secolo, in: “Rome et la science moderne entre Renaissance et Lumières”, A. Romano, ed., Rome, 2009, p. 250). At the end of the volume after a long poem is another dedication addressed by the author to Pompeo Piccolomini d'Aragona, bishop of Tropea (1526-1562).

The work was reprinted with additions and corrections in Rome a year later under a different title Degli affetti dell'animo, then again a third time in Venice in 1574 with the title Della giocondità dell'animo, and finally also in a Latin version entitled De vera animi magnitudine liber (Pesaro, 1581).

The work is divided into two parts. The second is an Italian free version (almost a paraphrasis as the author himself declares) of Galen's treatise Quod animi mores on the characteristics of the soul, which is materialistically identified with the mixtures of the body. The first part is thus a commentary on Galen's treatise, presented in the form of a pleasant conversation among friends during a lovely banquet held on August 1^st in the house of Pompeo Piccolomini d'Aragona under a cool loggia. The other participants of the banquet are the future archbishop of Bologna Gabriele Paleotti (1522-1579), the poet from Perugia Ludovico Sensi (1509-1579), the jurist, poet and professor at the Perugia Studio Giovanni Paolo Lancellotti (1522-1590), Alessandro Frumenti “presbiter romanus”, and Scipione Cibbò.

After discussing the origin of the name of the summer feast of “Ferragosto” they are celebrating, the company starts reading and commentating the manuscript with the Italian version of Galen's treatise that had been translated by Firmani himself with the help of Aurelio Stagni from Modena, who was the physician of Girolamo Cardano, and Giovanni Battista Modio, physician and philosopher from Calabria who became one of the very first followers of San Filippo Neri. Through a series of fables they come to investigate the human vices and passions in a way that, quite like Galen's booklet, is more similar to “comedy”, as Firmani puts it, than to a medical treatise.

Annibale Firmani was born in Fano in 1532. He studied law and philosophy in Bologna, having among his tutors the future cardinal Gabriele Paleotti. In 1559 he entered the Jesuit order. He died in Loreto in 1595. Firmani is also the author of a treatise on education, Modo di bene allevare figliuoli (Macerata, 1579).

Edit 16, CNCE19216; De Backer-Sommervogel, III, col. 750; F. Barberi, Tipografi romani del Cinquecento, Florence, 1983, p. 143.

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