Marchese, Duca Annibale. Tragedie Cristiane.

Naples, Felice Mosca, 1729.

Large 8vo. 2 volumes in one. (4), (16), 502 pp. (4), 504, (2) pp.; followed by 40 pp. of sheet music. With two allegorical engraved title vignettes on both title-pages (printed in red and black), an engraved frontispiece by Jeremias Jakob Sedelmayr after Francesco Solimena, an engraved author's portrait by Antonio Baldi, and 11 engraved plates by both Sedelmayr and Baldi after Solimena, accompanying the 10 tragedies and the dedication. Also with some engraved initials and some woodcut tailpieces and 40 pages of engraved sheet music to the choruses. Contemporary brown morocco, gold tooled spine, gold-tooled frames on both boards with gold-tooled cornerpieces, black morocco spine label with title in gold, decorative gilt roll to edges and inner dentelles, marbled endpapers and gilt and goffered edges with an intricate fore-edge painting, incorporating both a closed and fanned design for the outer edge. The edges at the head and foot of the text block are painted with floral and botanical designs. The fore-edge is painted with a central cartouche with scrolling leafs in a rococco-style, which reveals, when fanned, a painting a of tree with a scroll with "Prospiciente Deo" painted above. The cartouche is surrounded by flowers and a crown is painted above. The fanned designs also reveals another cartouche in the same style, reading "Si faveat coelum, bene surculus, arbore crescet: Si mihi TU, faveas, sic EGO MAGNUS ero" and the monogram signature of an unknown artist below. The painting of the tree and the scroll and the subscription below are taken from Camerarius, being his third emblem in the first part of his "Symbolorum et Emblematum" (first edition Nuremberg, 1593).