Francis de Sales, Saint
Thorens (Duchy of Savoy) 1567 – 1622 Lyon

I veri trattenimenti ò Discorsi spirituali… tradotti dal Franzese nell Italiano da D. Paolo Battista Vso di Mare.

Rome, Francesco Cavalli, 1652

duodecimo (140 × 75 mm), (228) ff. signed a¹² A–S¹² (blanks S11, S12) and paginated (24) 1–411 (21). En­graved portrait printed on folio a3.

provenance Olimpia Maidalchini-Pamphilj (1594–1657), binding — Christie’s, ‘Libri, autografi e stampe’, Rome, 14 December 1999, lot 125

Text lightly foxed; slight abrasion to edges of the binding, headcap chipped, other minor defects, but overall a good copy in entirely original state of preservation.

binding contemporary Italian calf binding, covers and back elaborately decorated in gilt, armorial insignia on covers of Olimpia Maidalchini-Pamphilj; page edges gilt.

First edition in Italian translation of Les Vrays Entretiens spirituels, a series of twenty-one lectures (or Conferences) on the duties and virtues of the conventual life delivered to the Nuns of the Visita­tion by François de Sales, later written up from memory by his listeners, and published in an authorised edition at Lyon in 1629.¹ The translator, Paolo Battista Uso di Mare, a Benedictine monk of the Cassinese congregation in the Basilica of San Paolo fuori di Mura in Rome, dedicates the edition to Cardinal Fabio Chigi, at whose instigation it was made.

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This copy was bound for Olimpia Maidalchini-Pamphilj (1594–1657), the most powerful woman in Rome of her day. First married to Paolo Nini, Olimpia contracted a second mar­riage with Pope Innocent x’s elder brother Pamphilo Pamphilj, to whom she bore a son, Camillo, in 1622. She became the confidant of Innocent x and received enormous riches during his pontificate, including magnificent works of art. Innocent’s successor, Alexander vii, exiled her in 1655 to her palace in San Martino al Cimino, a small village north of Rome, where she died two years later.

Our binding is decorated by tools associated with a shop once designated the ‘Rospigliosi Bindery’ on account of the work it undertook (directly and on behalf of donors) for Giulio Rospigliosi as Cardinal and as Pope Clement ix (1667–1669).² From about 1656, the shop worked continuously for the Biblioteca Vaticana. Recent scholarship has identified its pro­prietors as the brothers Gregorio (died 1696) and Giovanni Andreoli (died 1699).³ Another Roman shop (the so-called ‘Enigmatic Binder’) employed very similar tools, including the two cherubs supporting the shield, and the roll decorating the back of our binding. On pre­sent knowledge it is impossible to separate their production.⁴

Two bindings displaying Olimpia’s insignia were featured in the exhibition Legatura Romana Barocca, one (no. 49) executed in vellum on a quarto Officio del Patriarca S. Domenico (Rome 1644), the other (no. 59) in calf on a quarto manu­script ‘cartella vuota’ (undated). Neither binding is as ornate as ours, nor decorated by the same group of tools. The ‘Enigmatic Binder’ bound for Pope Alexander vii in a similar style Francis de Sales’ Introduzione alla vera divotione (Rome 1651).⁵

Four copies of this first edition can be located, all in Italian libraries

● Biella, Biblioteca diocesana del Seminario vescovile, A.8.111 ● Genoa, Biblioteca provinciale dei Cappuccini liguri, 1CHISPA XX0 70 ● Foligno, Biblioteca L. Jacobilli del Seminario Vescovile, FA Seic.159 ● Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, S.BOR A.IV.91