CAPELLA, Galeazzo Flavio.

L'anthropologia.

      - Venice, nelle case delli heredi d'Aldo Romano, & d'Andrea d'Asola, 1533. FIRST EDITION. 8vo. ff. 74 (ie 75) [i]. Italic letter, woodcut anchor and dolphin device on title repeated on verso of last, capital spaces with guide letters, C19 armorial bookplate of Henry Pelhain on pastedown. light age yellowing in places, very occasional thumb mark, light marginal soiling, faint waterstain to lower outer corner of final ll. A good, large copy in olive green straight grained morocco c1800, spine gilt in compartments, tan morocco title and date pieces gilt, corners and joints a little rubbed. First edition of this scholarly treatise on the nature of man based on famous characters in history, from classical to the contemporary, by the celebrated Italian historian Galeazzo Capella (1487-1537). The first book deals with the dignity of man, the second with women and the third with the misery of the two sexes and the vanity of their affections. The second book was published (in part) in 1525, under title 'Della eccellenza et dignita? delle donne' in which Capella shows how women excel in each of the virtues and in attributes such as love, learning and beauty. He expanded and recast the work in this edition as a dialogue. He argues against the contemporary idea that women are lesser than men in that they do not occupy "civil and sacred offices". In antiquity this was not so he notes, citing Dido among others, stating that in his experience offices were not always given to the worthiest people. He implicitly argues for the primacy of rank over sex, but only in that high rank is correlative with the potential to develop certain skills rather than as being mystically efficacious. The defense of women in book two is preceded by a defense of the excellence of man, in which Capella makes a brief reference to the New World. While extolling the virtues of man, Capella comments: "I will not speak of the Portuguese, who have recently had the daring to search for the other pole and to pass into the zone which the ancient ones, not knowing, held to be uninhabited due to its closeness to the sun." For Capella the gloomier political situation, as imperial hold on Milan and the rest of Italy tightened, is reflected in his addition of the third part 'on the wretchedness of both men and women and the vanity of their studies'. It is this final argument which wins over the others.Galeazzo Capella (1487-1537), a Milanese historian also known under the name of Capra, was secretary, first to Jerome Morone, then to Duke Francisco Sforza II at Milan and later became ambassador to the German emperors Maximilian and Charles V. In addition to this work, he is remembered for his history of Milan (1520-31) and an account of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. A very good copy of a most interesting and influential work finely printed by Aldus in his small Italic. BM STC It. C16 p145. Renouard p. 110 no. 10. Adams C 578. Alden 1533/7. Gay I 848. (1526 edition). Erdmann p. 162L787