NANI, Giovanni Battista, as Anania Zen.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Il cavallo di razza, Rare first edition, illustrating and describing over 100 early horse brands in use in the Veneto, Lombardia, and Romagna regions of northern Italy. This copy, finely bound for Count Pierre de Mornay, was exhibited at the Grolier Club in January 1895.We have traced only one copy of this edition in auction records in over 60 years, and fewer than 10 copies in libraries worldwide.Brand books, intended as registers of brands used to identify livestock, originated in Renaissance Italy to record horse markings. They were typically printed in small pocket-size format to be used in the field and with one single illustration per page to facilitate consultation. The earliest example known is Libro de marchi di cavalli (Venice, 1569). Giovanni Battista Nani (1616-1678) was a Venetian historian and politician. In the address to the reader, he explains that he composed the book as a guide to the best breeds of northern Italy, as he could not find many described in the only source he had: Francesco Liberati's La perfettione del Cavallo (1639). The brands consist of initials within circles, clover leaves, crowns, and shields, often simplified versions of family symbols and coats of arms. Each is accompanied by a note indicating the owner or breeder, and which part of the horse the brand is applied to. Page 63 shows the brand of the Medici family in Florence. On page 69 is Nani's family brand, the same appearing on the hind leg of the newly branded horse on the frontispi

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