Beschreibung:

VALTURIUS, Robertus (1413-1484). De re militari , in Italian. Translated by Paolo Ramusio. Verona: Boninus de Boninis, de Ragusia, 17 February 1483.
VALTURIUS, Robertus (1413-1484). De re militari , in Italian. Translated by Paolo Ramusio. Verona: Boninus de Boninis, de Ragusia, 17 February 1483. Chancery 2° (281 x 190mm). Collation: p6 (1 blank, 2r translator's dedication to Roberto di Aragonia); a-d8 e6 f-g8 h10 i-u8 x-y6 z8 &8 ?6 u6 A-B6 C-E8 F-G6 H-I8 K10 L-N8 O10 (a1 blank, a2r text, O8v colophon, O9r quire register, O9v-O10 blank). 314 leaves. 36 lines and headline. Types: 2:114 R, 1:90G. 2- to 9-line initial spaces, a few with printed guide-letter. 95 woodcuts (including one repeat), many full-page. With all three blanks. (k2.7 slightly short and possibly supplied from another copy, occasional faint marginal spotting.) Green morocco gilt by Riviere, gilt edges (new endpapers); calf-backed folding box. Provenance: faint scored inscription (on verso of first blank) — a few old marginal annotations — ‘Battaglie maritime’ (manuscript inscription on woodcut on F5v) — Augustus, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843, sale 22 April 1845; bookplate). FIRST VERNACULAR EDITION of one of the first scientific texts to be printed, and the earliest to contain illustrations of a technical nature. Bonino de Boninus completed this edition within a week of the second Latin edition. Both are illustrated with copies of the woodcuts used in the first edition ([Verona:] Joannes Nicolai de Verona, 1472), the order differing slightly in the Italian edition. The subjects cover a wide range of war machines: battering-rams, cross-bows, catapults, storming wagons, chariots, pontoons, catapults, and even an early type of grenade and a paddle-wheeled submarine. This Italian edition is rarer than both its Latin predecessors. This was the last of seven editions printed at Verona by Bonino de Boninus, a cleric from Ragusa, who had worked at Venice in 1479 with Andreas de Paltasichis, who provided him with his typographic material. After completing this edition he moved to Brescia, remaining there for about eight years and producing around 35 editions, mainly of humanist and legal texts. Boninus spent his last years at Lyon, where he acted as bookseller and agent for the Venetian Republic; he reappears as the publisher of a few Lyonese liturgical books at the end of the century. HC 15849; BMC VII, 952; Bod-inc V-043; BSB-Ink V-54; CIBN V-59; Klebs 1015.1; IGI 10116; Goff V-90.