Cataneo, Giovanni Maria:

$8,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

GENUA. From the collection of R. David Parsons. This elegiac poem in praise of the city of Genoa, consisting of 446 lines of hexameter, touches on a wide range of the city's features, including its topography, commercial and industrial life, monuments, customs, and people – notably Christopher Columbus, one of Genoa's most eminent natives, who gets a special mention for his character, virtue, and world-changing discoveries, on either side of leaf C2.At this early date, such popular mentions of Columbus were rare and would remain so for most of the rest of the century. Until the end of the 16th century, the great explorer's discoveries passed relatively unnoticed in popular literature, as he was largely eclipsed by Vespucci.A contemporary manuscript note on the titlepage appears to be in the hand of someone close to the author, perhaps a friend, who saw the poem before publication. The inscription, added after Cataneo's name, reads: "quam priusquam imprimeret mihi Romae ostendit et perlegit et iudicio nostro cuicumque", which can be translated as "[Giovanni Maria Cataneo] showed this to me before it was printed and read/examined it carefully (taking into consideration) my own opinion."

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.