Add MS 8752

[GIOVANNI ?] SAGREDO: Relazione of the Court of France; circa 1656. Italian. Copy. Relazione of the Court of France apparently written in 1656, two years after the majority of Louis XIV (see f. 17v). The MS. title (f.1) attributes the relazione to Nicolò Sagredo, 'Relatione della Corte di francia dell'Eccellentissimo Signor Nicolò Sagredo Ambasciatore della Serenissima Republica di Venetia appresso Sua Maesta Christianissima'. In 1656 Nicolò Sagredo had just returned from Rome where he had been member of a Venetian delegation to Pope Alexander VII together with Giovanni Pesaro, Bertuccio Valier, and Alvise Contarini. We have found no evidence that upon his return he was sent to Paris. Another Venetian, Giovanni Sagredo, had in fact been ambassador to France between 1652-1655, and had left the Parisian embassy in July 1655 for his new post as Venetian ambassador to England. Giovanni Sagredo read his relazione of France to the Venetian Senate in 1656. However, the text of his relazione as published in Barozzi – Berchet, s. ii, Francia, p. ii (1859), pp. 525-555, greatly differs from the present text. Inc. (f. 2) 'Serenissimo Principe / Nel dover riferire alla Serenità vostra lo stato in che ho lasciato la Francia', expl. (f. 170v) 'col servitio e commodo di questo Serenissimo Dominio / Il fine'. Owned by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, but lacking his armorial bookplate. '119' in pencil in top left corner of front pastedown. Purchased, together with Add. 8718, 8720, 8728, 8729, 8745, 8756, 8757, 8758, 8759, and 8760, from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 119 (part).

Paper; ff. 170+vi. 252 x 183mm. Horizontal catchwords on each leaf. One Italian hand. Late 17th-cent. binding of vellum.