PLATINA, Bartolomeo Sacchi da.

by Bartolomeo Sacchi da Platina

£6,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

A good copy of this incunable edition of Platina s classic and influential Lives of the popes (first 1479), beautifully printed by the Italian Giovanni Rosso, active in Treviso and Venice during the second half of the 15th century. This volume belonged to Claudius de Britonis, a miles sanctissimi sepulchri , meaning knight of the Holy Sepulchre. The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre traces its origin back to the first crusade. After the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, the order was established, and the mission of its knights who fought in the subsequent crusades was to defend the tomb of Christ. In the Renaissance, the Order continued to defend and support the Christian faith in the Holy Land. Claude de Berton (b. 1535), lord of Crillon and Saint Jean de Vassols, chevalier de l ordre du Pape et de celui du Roi (Vie de Louis de Berton de Crillon des Balbes, 1825, p. 170), commanded the troops of the Pope at the siege of Menerbe near Avignone in 1574. The name Berton was commonly latinized as De Britonis or Briton . The Italian Renaissance humanist Bartolomeo Sacchi (1421-1481), was born to a poor family of Piadena. Known as Platina, from the Latin name of his birthplace, he refused to use the surname Sacchi as it betrayed his humble origins. In his youth, he served as a mercenary soldier under Francesco Sforza and Niccolò Piccinino, then studied in Mantua and later in Florence. In 1462, he followed the young cardinal Francesco Gonzaga to Rome and obtained a post in the

• Binding: Hardcover

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