Add MS 8517

AGUCCHI LETTER-BOOK; 1621-1623. Italian. Copies. Register of letters by Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi (1570-1632), Secretary of State of Pope Gregory XV Ludovisi (1621-1623), written on behalf of the pope and of Cardinal Nepote Ludovico Ludovisi. The letters, dating 15 Feb. 1621 - 12 July 1623, cover all through Ludovisi's pontificate. Recipients include Louis XIII of France and Philip IV of Spain, Ranuccio I Duke of Parma and other Italian princes, Cardinals Francesco Cennini de' Salamandri, the Capuchin friar Giacinto da Casale, the Duke of Feria, governor of Milan, and Angelo Gozzadini, Archbishop of Civita Castellana, and many other cardinals, bishops, papal legates and nuncios. The MS. is listed in Iter Italicum, IV (1989), p. 68a, and mentioned in in Die Hauptinstruktionen Gregors XV. für die Nuntien und Gesandten an den europäischen Fürstenhöfen 1621-1623, ed. K. Jaitner, 2 vols. (Tübingen, 1997; Instructiones Pontificum Romanorum), passim. For Agucchi see DBI, 1 (1960), pp. 504-506; K. Jaitner, 'Kurie und Politik - Der Pontifikat Gregors XV', in Kurie und Politik. Stand und Perspektiven der Nuntiaturberichtsforschung, ed. by A. Koller (Tübingen, 1998), pp. 9-15. Title (f. 1) 'Lettere diverse di Monsignore Agucchia a nome del Signore Cardinale Ludovisio', inc. (f. 1) 'Al Signor Duca di Parma / Di Roma li 15 febraro 1621 / A niun mio Signore, più che a Vostra Altezza Serenissima', expl. (f. 189) 'con l'honorevolezza della costumata famiglia'. Stamp of the Colonna library 'Libraria Colonna' in red on ff. i, 1, 2, 189v, and vi verso (for the Colonna library stamp see Bragaglia, vol. iii, T 32: c. 1750). Owned by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, but lacking his armorial bookplate. '396' in pencil in upper left corner of front pastedown. Purchased, together with Add. 8725, 8726, and 8791, from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 396 (part).

Paper; ff. 189+vi. circa 265 x 187mm. One Italian hand. 18th-cent. Italian binding of full vellum; mottled edges.