[Rome Guidebook]:

$75,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

MIRABILIA ROMAE. Rare incunable edition of the earliest European printed guidebook, a geographically arranged inventory of the "not-to-be-missed" monuments and sites of Rome. This copy was handsomely bound in green morocco for the library of Prince Ferdinando of Savoy, first duke of Genoa, with his coat of arms and initials in gilt on the covers. ISTC lists eight editions conjecturally printed in the 1470s, of which all except the edition printed at Treviso by Gerardus de Lisa, de Flandria, April 12, 1475, lack an imprint. All are exceedingly rare, and only two of the eight editions have appeared in commerce in modern times.Lauded by Printing and the Mind of Man as the "Renaissance Baedecker," Mirabilia Romae ("The marvels of Rome") was composed about 1140-50 by an anonymous writer—sometimes identified as Benedict, Canon of St. Peter's—as a guide for the pilgrims to the city. First printed in the early 1470s, it was reprinted multiple times over the following century, and translated into Italian, English, Spanish, and German. The great popularity of this work during the Renaissance illustrates a new awareness of the significance of ancient Roman ruins, and this guidebook "was instrumental in preserving some of them. The Memorabilia is a valuable source for our knowledge of what remained and attracted notice in medieval Rome. One of its pleasant side-effects was the beginning of measures for the 'protection of ancient monuments' - such as Trajan's column - as the Roman authori

• Printing: later

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