Le vite dei dodeci Visconti che signoreggiarono Milano Descritte da Monsignor Paolo Giovio Vescovo di Nocera tradotte da Lodovico Domenichi. Et in quest' ultima Impressione accresciute de gl' Argomenti à caiscuna d'esse Vite, con le annotationi nel margine, & Tauola copiosissima. Abbellite delle ver Effigie d'essi Principi, dedicate all'illustmo. et revermo Monsigr. Honorato Visconti Arcivescovo di Larissa

In Milano In Casa di Gio. Battista Bidelli..., 1645. 4to, 265 x 210 mms., pp. [xx], 132, with engraved title-page, engraved portrait of dedicatee, and 12 full-page engraved portraits of Milanese viscounts, engraved by Paolo Bianchi, contemporary limp vellum (a little soiled); inner margins of front and rear end-papers at little wormed with some very slight water-staining, none of which affects the text or the engravings, a very good copy, with the 19th century book ticket of Conte Gropello di Alessandria on the front paste-down end-paper. Although Giovio (1483 - 1552) took a degree in medicine, he was primarily interested in a literary career, in which he was notably successful, so much so that Leo X gave him the rank of Cavaliere, with a pension. Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, had one of the most celebrated collections of Italian portraits. In a letter dated 1521, he expressed his intention to put together some real portraits of men of letters, whose eyes would stimulate men to virtue. Giovio had in mind adding portraits of artists, popes and princes, and in 1537 built a museum to house the paintings in Como. Giovio convinced famous men to send him their pictures with the promise that, in his museum, they would have been immortalized for posterity. The present work was published first at Paris in 1549, Vita XII Vicecomitum Mediolani Principum, and Domenichi's is the first Italian translation, notable for Bianchi's exceptionally fine engraved portraits. Brunet III, 584.