Tavola Istorica e Cronologica degli Avvenimenti Piu Celebri de' Principati per 1600 Anni dall'Imperio d'Augusto al Principio del Corrente Secolo Dispota Secondo l'Ordine de Tempi ed Ornata con Figure che Accennano la Pruova (?) delle Istorie

Roma: Stamperia della Reverenda Camera Apost., 1695. First Edition presumed. Full Vellum. Very Good. Scarce, with no copies found on OCLC First Search or elsewhere. 8vo. 24 by 17 cm. Unpaginated. 98 leaves with content, printing only on rectos, 80 of these pages have engraved illustrations. Illustrations appear to be mounted cards, surrounded by inked ruled borders. The illustrations themselves measure 9.5 by 5.5 cm, and positioned in the upper right of the otherwise blank pages. The illustrations present historic highlights and milestones in chronological order, beginning with Augustus and as the title specifies, ending with Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor between 1576 and 1612. The early illustrations are numismatic cameos in their appearance, with six to nine such images per card. By the end of the Roman era, there is one illustration per card, with a fairly detailed explanatory caption beneath. After many illustrations depicting human actors, the final illustrations tend to be of crowns, flags, armor, and thus, more like trophies. The plates are set apart by centuries, with five plates per century, and each century is demarcated with a text page and named after some salient aspect of that century's history. So sections are entitled "Secolo de Cesare", "Secolo degli Antonini", "Secolo de Tiranni", etc. ending in "Secolo degli Austriaci". Condition: vellum soiled, with one spine label perished, a shadow of its writing semi-legible, and the other spine label deteriorated. Bianchini's name written neatly on spine by hand. Sliver of dampstain affecting top of many leaves, with small wormhole in same area, neither issue disconcerting -- the problems don't come near the illustrations, and the pages affected still read mostly clean. Otherwise, light scattered soiling of various kinds.