Rare first edition of the Venetian physician Glissenti’s (d. 1614) weighty treatise on the psychology of death, the title translates as Moral Discourses against the Displeasure of Dying, called Athanatophilia and is described by McLure as “probably the longest lay treatise on death to come out of Renaissance Italy”.
Pitched at a middle-brow audience the text, divided into five ‘dialogo’, blends learned and volgare literary traditions and breaks new ground by investigating death at all levels of lay society. In his dialogues he includes among his interlocutors, for example, a philosopher, courtier, captain, farmer, butcher, servant, beggar, lawyer, gondolier and an actress.
The final part entitled “Breve trattato nel qual moralmente si discorre qual sia la pietra di filosofi” is Glissenti’s moral interpretation of the elusive quest by alchemists for the Philosopher’s Stone, which opens with a woodcut showing a skeleton playing the flute in St. Mark’s Square, in front of the Palazzo Ducale.
It is beautifully illustrated by several hands in the tradition of Holbein’s “Dance of Death” (31 of the woodcuts are after Holbein, 26 using the same blocks Valgrisi had used for his edition in 1545, some with alterations) with much emphasis on Venice and scenes of Death in contemporary life, at the Rialto Bridge, in the Piazza San Marco, and on the canals as a gondolier. Mortimer notes that the author’s device is found on the title-pages and was designed for this text with skulls and skeletons in the border.
The dedications by Glissenti to six different people, one for each dialogue and the Trattato, are not found in the subsequent editions. The dedicatees include the author’s sister, Glissentia Glissenti, and Camilla Soranzo, Podestaressa di Crema.
A copy of the first edition now at the Wellcome has extensive notes by the Bolognese bibliophile Camillo Raineri Biscia (1846-1920) who explains the textual differences between the first edition and later editions of Glissenti’s work. He discovered that passages perceived to be licentious or obscene – concentrated particularly in the second dialogue, ‘Dell’amore dei sensi’ - were either substituted or removed completely from subsequent incarnations of the text; but not before the first, unexpurgated edition had already circulated widely. In some copies, such as ours, the title of the proverb on f.85v A veste logorata poca fede vien prestata (‘A shabby coat finds little credit’) has been cancelled with ink.
Provenance: Part 5 has an early signature of ‘Joannes Petrus Bordonius’. Belgian bibliophile Frank Boucquillon (1942-2023), who had an extensive “Dance of Death” collection, with his label inside front cover. Small 16th century Biblical woodcut pasted onto fly-leaf.
First title, at head and foot, and some headlines just cropped, small repair to woodcut on f. 87v. also affecting a few letters on recto. First and last leaves a little soiled, a few stains here and there, but generally a fresh copy.
Mortimer Italian, no. 215. Ferguson I, p. 330 (note). Rosenthal Magica 2438: “Ouvrage peu connu et fort rare, c’est un sorte de tragedie de la vie humaine en cinq tableaux, dans lesquels sont comprises 29 nouvelles. Le livre est orné d’une infinité de gravures sur bois, conçues dans le style et le sentiment des danses des morts de Holbein … “. Not in Caillet.
Ref: G.W. McLure. The Culture of Profession in Late Renaissance Italy (2004), pp. 177-202.
