Idea principis christiano-politici 101 sijmbolis expressa ….

Amsterdam, Johann Jacob Schipper, 1659.. 12°, contemporary stiff vellum, edges rouged (some soiling, short split at top of upper joint). 103 nearly full-page engraved emblems. Slightly browned. Fine impressions of the engravings.In good condition. Engraved title, (11 ll.), 831, (1) pp., (2, 2 blank ll.). *** An early edition of this enormously popular work, with over a hundred nearly full-page, nicely engraved emblems, present in fine impressions. First published in Munich, 1640, the Idea went through more than twenty editions in the original Spanish, and was translated into French, Italian, English and German as well as Latin. After Quevedo's Política de Dios and the works of Gracián, it is the finest Golden Age treatise on statecraft, covering the education of a prince, his relations with ministers and subjects, his duties as head of state, and his duties to himself in old age and in preparation for death. The emblems at the beginning of each chapter are pictorial statements of the chapter's lessons. Saavedra wrote it as a Christian reply to Machiavelli's cynicism, for the benefit of Balthasar, son of Philip IV, who died too young to profit by its advice. "It is written in a compact, sententious style, with much quaint and curious knowledge of history, and with a large and not always judicious display of learning. But in many points it reminds us of Sir Walter Raleigh's 'Cabinet Council' and Owen Feltham's 'Resolves' …" (Ticknor III, 185).Saavedra Fajardo (1584-1648), a native of Algezares in Murcia, spent 40 of his 64 years in diplomatic service.*** Palau 283483. Praz, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery (1964), pp. 483-5. Glasgow University Library, Short Title Catalogue of the Emblem Books 1432. This edition not in Landwehr, Romanic; cf. 651-675. Campa, Emblemata Hispanica SX describes the Spanish editions in detail. This edition not in Emblem Books in the Princeton University Library. Ward, Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature pp. 515-6. Ticknor, Spanish Literature III, 185. Watsonline has editions of 1651, 1660, 1669, and 1686.