Pauli Zanchi Bergomatis iurisconsulti, Ad illustrissimum Venetiarum Senatum pro Bergomatibus congratulatio. Iovitae Rapicii Brixiani oratio, in funere eiusdem Pauli Zanchi habita

4to (205x140 mm). 16 leaves. Collation: A-D⁴. Woodcut initials. Later cardboards. Title page slightly soiled, small lack of paper to the lower margin of the last three leaves not affecting the text, all in all a good, wide-margined copy.

First edition, appeared posthumously, of this oration pronounced before the Venetian senate by Paolo Zanchi, a humanist and jurist from Bergamo, followed by the oration for his funeral written by Giovita Ravizza from Brescia. Zanchi's Congratulatio was probably delivered after the dreadful defeat at Agnadello in 1509, which caused the Venetian Republic to falter. The city of Bergamo had been under Venetian rule since 1428: in the year of publication of this pamphlet, the Venetian senate had begun work to extend and fortify the city walls of Bergamo, and it was perhaps to celebrate this event that Zanchi's speech was reprinted. It is a long panegyric of Venice, whose superiority over all other European states is celebrated. Giovita Ravizza (or Rapicio) was a humanist of some prominence: successor to Calcondila in the chair of Greek in Milan, which he held between 1510 and 1523, he was a teacher of Zanchi and his sons, and his funeral oration expresses this familiarity with moved tones.

Edit 16, CNCE60324.

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