DISCORSI MORALI DELL'ECCELL. SIG. FABIO GLISSENTI CONTRA IL DISPIACER DEL MORIRE. Detto Athanatophilia. Divisi in cinque dialoghi, occorsi in cinque giornate. .. by GLISSENTI, Fabio.: - 1609

Venezia, Bartolameo de gli Alberti, 1609.. Ne' quali si discorre quanto ragionevolmente si dovrebbe desiderar la Morte, & come naturalmente la si vada fuggendo....Et un molto curioso Trattato della Pietra de' Filosofi. Adornati di bellissime figure, ai loro luoghi appropriate. SECOND EDITION 1609 (first published in Venice in 1596), Italian text, 8vo, approximately 220 x 160 mm, 8¾ x 6¼ inches, interesting woodcut device on title page featuring 4 depictions of death in the frame and a tree of life at the centre with the words "OCCULTO GLISCIT", medallion portrait of the author on verso within a similar frame featuring skeletons and skulls with the words "APERTE DEGLISCIT" which completes the motto on the recto, title page device and portrait are repeated for each of the 5 Discorsi and the Breve Trattato, 382 woodcut illustrations in the text, by repetition of 117 blocks, varying slightly in size, 62 x 47 mm (2½" x 1 7/8") to 65 x 49, some printed in pairs, those printed singly set within 2 decorative columns featuring skulls and skeletons, some tailpieces containing skulls, some decorative or historiated initials, leaves: (8), 592, collation: a8, A-3H8, 3I4, 3K-4E8, 3F4, bound in modern full blind panelled calf, raised bands and blind decoration to spine, gilt lettered red morocco label, new endpapers. Title inked neatly long ago on bottom edges (see image), title page lightly browned and faintly spotted, grey smudge in fore-edge margin, small repair to lower outer corner, light crease across upper outer corner, first few leaves dog-eared at lower outer corner, occasional pale brown stain, all over on Aa2 and Aa3, no loss of legibility (see image), small closed tear in text and 2 tiny holes in column to woodcut on A7r, no loss of text, very small chip to lower margin of K7, a few neat old repairs to small closed margin tears, small worm track to top outer corner from T8-X2 and from 3A6-3D1, another to lower margin from Pp5-Ss8, some with neat repairs, title page and first page of the Breve Trattato slightly browned, browning persists, mainly to margins to the final leaf, edges of final leaf slightly ragged and have been strengthened with paper repair tape, no loss of text. A very good copy. Fabio Glissenti (circa 1550-1615) taught medicine in Venice and Padua where he was renowned as one of the most important scientists and philosophers of his time. Many of the illustrations feature Death. 31 of these subjects are taken from Holbein's Dance of Death, "the blocks designed by several hands and show Death in scenes of contemporary Venitian life, in the Piazzetta San Marco, at the Rialto Bridge, on the canals as a gondolier", The work consists of five dialogues and a brevissimo trattato. Each of these is preceded by a portrait of the author. These portraits, as all of the other plates, are decorated with funeral emblems. The cuts, all of which contain a skeletonized or mummified figure, are repeated over and over again, most of them in each section of the work. Some of the Holbein subjects are very poorly imitated. The prints bearing upon medical subjects are especially interesting to us, as Glissenti is said to have been a physician himself .See: Mortimer, Harvard Catalogue of Italian 16th Century Books, Volume I, No. 215. MORE IMAGES ATTACHED TO THIS LISTING, ALL ZOOMABLE, FURTHER IMAGES ON REQUEST. POSTAGE AT COST.