Relatione historica, overo Chronica della misteriosa chiesa di San Stefano di Bologna, detta Gierusalemme; Nella quale si tratta della sua origine, fondatione, roine, ristorationi, & bellezza; significati, misterij, Reliquie, Corpi Santi, & lor vite, con molte questioni Filosofiche, & Theologiche, & altri discorsi sopra l'Historie, & successi di Bologna. Con un breve compendio della Vita del Gloriosiss. San Pietro Celestino Papa Quinto. Composta dal R.P.D. Donato Pullieni de' Lupari da Siderno, monaco Celestino in S. Stefano, [...]

8vo (142x97 mm). [16], 299, [5] pp. Collation: [π]A⁴ a⁴ A-T⁸. Woodcut coat-of-arms of the dedicatee, cardinal Alessandro Peretti, on l. [π]A2r. Woodcut vignette on l. T8r showing the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Later stiff vellum with lettering piece on spine. On the title page ownership entry “Raffaello Bistega 1740”, possibly somehow related to the quadrature painter from Bologna Luca Antonio Bistega (1672-1732). Light browning and foxing, more significant at pp. 67-76, a few marginal repairs/reinforcements, printed marginal notes on a few leaves slightly trimmed, all in all a good copy.

First edition of this monograph on the foundation, history, building, reconstruction, description, miracles, and relics of the Basilica of Santo Stefano in Bologna, a complex of religious edifices, founded in the 5^th century by Saint Petronius, bishop and patron saint of the city, which is also known as “Holy Jerusalem” as one of the buildings it contains is with its octagonal shape the closest to the original of the numerous existing Romanesque copies of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (cf. R.G. Ousterhout, The Church of Santo Stefano: A “Jerusalem” in Bologna, in: “Gesta”, vol. 20, no. 2, 1981, pp. 311-321).

Pullieni de' Lupari's book is a true guide for the pilgrims who came in large numbers to visit the church complex. His though is not the first monographic work devoted to Santo Stefano as N. Gargano and F. Patricelli years earlier had published quite shorter works on the subject, respectively entitled Devotione indulgentie & cose mirabile le quale sono in la ecclesia de sancto Stephano de Bologna dicta Hierusalem (Bologna, Girolamo Bendetti, 1520) and Cronica della misteriosa, & devota chiesa, & badia, di S. Stefano di Bologna (Bologna, Pellegrino Bonardo, 1575 and reprinted in 1584) (cf. B. Borghi, Pellegrini a Santo Stefano. Reliquie e reliquari dell'antica basilica bolognese, in: “I quaderni del m.ae.s.”, VIII, 2005, pp. 63-91).

Little is known about the author, a Celestine monk originally from Siderno (Reggio Calabria), who lived in Santo Stefano in Bologna for a while. He is the author of several publications, including De ordine intelligendi (Bologna, 1598), Harmonia pacis (Chieti, 1602), Istoria del celebre Monastero di Casaluce (Naples, 1623), and Discorso filosofico ed astronomico su le eruzioni del Vesuvio (Naples, 1632) (cf. C. Minieri Riccio, Memorie storiche degli scrittori nati nel Regno di Napoli, Naples, 1844, pp. 278 and 409).

Frati, 2357; Edit 16, CNCE32088; Cicognara, 4061.

[11023]