Venice, Francesco Sansovino and Co, 1560. [BOUND FOR ROBERT DUDLEY] 8vo, ff. [12], 438, [2]. Predominantly Italic letter, little Roman; printer’s device on title, historiated initials and decorative head-pieces; printing tear to lower margin of f. 204, displacing a few letters. A fine copy in contemporary tan calf, gilt supralibros and initials of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, within double-fillet border with flower at corners and blind-tooled external panel, on both covers; five compartments with gilt floral decoration on spine; a. e. g.; short ms stubbs; c18 and c19 bookplates of Robert John and John Peyto Verney, Lords Willoughby de Broke, on front pastedown and endpaper; Pirie’s bookplate on rear pastedown. Very rare Italian translation of one of Shakespeare’s, Montaigne’s and Cervantes’s sources, first published in Seville in 1540, in of the most iconic bindings of Elizabethan England. Pedro Mejía (1497-1551) was a prominent Spanish humanist and historian. A friend of Erasmus and Luis Vives, he was appointed by Emperor Charles V as royal chronicler in recognition of his wide-ranging knowledge. The Silva de varia lección (A Miscellany of Several Lessons) was his masterpiece, with countless editions across Europe and early transposition into Italian, French and English. As the title suggests, it provides insights into a great variety of subjects (geography, history, ethnography, natural science, ethics, theology, astrology and medicine), mostly relying on exemplary stories taken from ancient sources, such as Plutarch, Pliny, Aulus Gellius and Macrobius, but also … [Click Below for Full Description]