Appointment as administrator of Lezhe

[Venice - Foscari, Francesco, Doge of Venice (1373-1457)]. Comissio egregii et nobilis viri domini Jeronimi Lambardo honor provisoris Alesii.

Venice, 2 Sept. 1433.

4to (ca. 175 x 248 mm). Latin manuscript on vellum. 8½ pp. on 6 leaves (the first four numbered, the last blank). 33 lines, per extensum. Contemporary vellum binding with two later handwritten spine labels. Stored in custom-made half morocco case.

 7,500.00

The doge Foscari appoints the Venetian nobiluòmo Girolamo Lambardo for two years as provveditore (administrator) of Castrum Alesii (Alessio) in Albania. The modern-day town of Lezha or Lezhë, then an important base for the salt trade with Serbia, had been a Venetian possession since 1393 (in 1468, Scanderbeg would die and be laid to rest here). Lambardo's appointment includes a detailed list of his duties, some of which are based on instructions going back to the years 1404-27.

A wide-margined, clean manuscript. The lower corner of the lined but otherwise blank final leaf is clipped.

Provenance: front pastedown bears engraved armorial bookplate (Gelli 390, 2 or 3, fig. 646) of Amedeo Svajer (1727-91), Venetian merchant and bibliophile of German descent. After his death, parts of his library were acquired by the last doge, Lodovico Giovanni Manin (1726-1802), whose typographic bookplate is likewise present. While most of Manin's collection appears to have been transferred to the Bibliotheca civica "Vincenzo Joppi" in Udine in 1949, the present document was kept in an Austrian private collection as early as the turn of the century.

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