The Amores of Sigismondo Boldoni A Manuscript from Queen Christina's Library with an introduction by John Sparrow.

Folio. [395 x 275 mm]. xvii, 44, [2 (subtitle)], [55 (facsimile - the first two leaves printed in colour, the rest in black-and-white)] pp. Bound in quarter black leather, purple cloth covers, the spine lettered in gilt.The Roxburghe Club,

Typeset in Monotype Lutetia & Perpetua by the Merrion Press. Colour facsimile printed by John Parfitt at the Westerham Press. Text printed & bound by Smith Settle in West Yorkshire. ISBN 578-1-901902-09-9.

John Hanbury Angus Sparrow (1906-1992), Warden of All Souls' College, Oxford (1952-77) and distinguished bibliophile was elected to the Roxburghe Club in 1953. This volume was commissioned by his executors and presented to the members of the Roxburghe Club in his memory in 2011. 60 copies only are available for sale.

This volume discusses and reproduces for the first time a manuscript of Latin verses by Sigismondo Boldoni (1597-1630?), of Bellano, on the eastern shore of Lake Como in Italy. He studied medicine and philosophy at the University of Padua, was a member of the College of Physicians at Milan, a lecturer in philosophy at the Univeristy of Pavia and from 1628 principal Professor of Philosophy there. He died, probably from the plague, in 1630.

The reproduction of the manuscript is introduced by an essay by John Sparrow (reprinted from The Library, December 1962), tracing the history of his manuscript backwards from its acquisition by him from Maggs in 1955, through the libraries of the Marquess of Crewe, the Biblioteca Braidense at Brera (from where it had disappeared c. 1872), Cardinal Durini (who had extracts from it printed in 1776) and ex-Queen Christina of Sweden. Nicolas Barker has provided a preface with an account of Sparrow's interests as a bibliophile and the genesis of this volume and two further chapters, "Boldoni in Padua" and "Who is Leucis?". These are followed by a full reproduction of the manuscript (the first two leaves in colour, the rest in black-and-white).

Stock Code: 63302