Add MS 8778

GIOVANNI CARLO SCARAMELLI: Relazione of Poland and other related papers; 1573-1574. Italian and Latin. Copy. Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli was Secretary to Girolamo Lippomano, the Venetian ambassador sent to Krakow after the election of Henri de Valois as King of Poland (20 Sept. 1573 – 1575); cf. Lippomano's relazione published in Albèri, s. I, vol. 6 (Florence, 1862), pp. 271-316. After his service in Poland Scaramelli probably followed Lippomano to Naples (1575-1576), France (1576-1579) and Constantinople (1590-1591). A few years later, on 15 Feb. 1602, he was appointed Venetian Resident in England, where he arrived in Feb. 1603 and remained until Jan. 1604; cf. L. Firpo, Ambasciatori veneti in Inghilterra (Turin, 1978), pp. xxv, 67-76. The present MS. contains a collection of papers relating to events occurred between the death of the King of Poland Sigismund II August Jagiellon (7 July 1572), the election on 9 May 1573 of the new king Henri de Valois, brother of Charles IX of France, and his clandestine return to France in 1574 and investiture as Henri III of France on 30 May 1574 (crowned 15 Feb. 1575). Most papers relate the contacts between the fugitive monarch and the Polish Senate before the eventual deposition of Henri as king of Poland (15 July 1575) and the election of the new sovereign Stephen Bathory, Prince of Transylvania (15 Dec. 1575). The MS. is entitled (f. 1v) 'Rerum memorabilium quae michi Ioanni Karolo Scaramelli Legationis Polonia tempore apud Hieronymum Lippomanum Venetum Oratorem Secretarii munere fungenti, vel audiuntur, vel visuntur multiplici varietate consita Sylva'. Inc. (f. 2) 'Dovendo io Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli andar segretario', expl. (f. 153) 'Senatorum Regni Poloniae ... Anno 1569 ... Maresalcus Curiae Lithuaniae'. Among other papers the collection includes copies of: - (a) ff. 2-14, 27-30v, account of Scaramelli's journey to Poland and a relazione of Poland, 1573; - (b) ff. 15-18v, 49v-50, description of King Sigismund II August funeral and abstract of his will, read in Senate in 1574; - (c) ff. 19-25, relazione of the arrival of Henri de Valois in Krakow, n.d.; - (d) passim, letters of correspondence between Selim II of Turkey and other Turkish authorities and the Polish Senate, 1573-1574; - (e) ff. 38-46v, speech of the Venetian ambassador Girolamo Lippomano to the Polish Senate and letters between the Venetian doge, the Polish Senate and Anna Jagiellon, sister of Sigismund II August, 1574; - (f) passim, letters of correspondence between Henri de Valois and the Polish Senate, 1574; - (g) ff. 78v-87, apology to Poland from Henri de Valois, signing as Henri III of France, [1574]. Incomplete table of contents (f. 1) added by a later hand. Owned by Giovanni Carlo Pisani between 1686-1694: see notes on ff. ii, 108v, 145v, 151v. Armorial bookplate of the 5th Earl of Guilford with shelfmark 'L/19/C' (front pastedown). '117' in pencil in top left corner of armorial bookplate. Purchased from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 117.

Paper; ff. 154+ii, plus one unfoliated interleaved leaf after ff. 1, 116, 124, 150, two after ff. 51, 149, and three after f. 145. 312 x 202mm. Several Italian and Polish hands. Watermark of text-block representing a wild boar in a shield, similar to Briquet 13591 (1572), and other late 16th-cent. watermarks produced in Swidnica (then Bohemia). Late 16th-cent. Polish binding of brown calfskin over pasteboards, tooled to a panel design with three rolls. The rolls, are applied in different succession on the upper and lower cover and are respectively: - (1) the four theological virtues, their names in scrolls, 'Fides – Iustici(a) – Carita(s) – Spes', 174 x 14 mm; - (2) Apollo and the Muses, their names in scrolls, 'Apollo – Caliop – Thalia – Euterp – Tersio', 222 x 17mm; - (3) the Saviour with David, St. Paul and St. John, identified by short sentences in scrolls, circa 210 x 20mm. For similar rolls on a contemporary bindings see: - (1) K. Haebler, Rollen- und Plattenstempel des XVI. Jahrhundert. Unter Mitwirkung von Dr. Ilse Schunke, vol. i (Leipzig, 1929), Polen. König August Sigismund, p. 76: Guagnini, Sarmatiae Europeae descriptio (Krakow, 1578) now in Dresden; - (2) S. G. Lindberg, 'Reliures polonaise dans les bibliotheques suedoissses de l'age gothique, de la Renaissance et de la reforme', VIII^e Congrès international des bibliophiles. Varsovie, 23-29 juillet 1973 (Warsaw, 1985), no. 14, p. 110: Petrus de Crescentiis, O pomnoźeniu y rozkrzewieniu... (Krakow, 1571), now Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, 112 B; - (3) idem, no. 21, p. 111: Długosz Jan, Historia rerum Polonicarum, vols. 1, 5, now Stockholm, Riksarkivet, Cod. E 8692. On the upper cover is tooled 'reges tra', and on the lower cover 'l / 6'. Traces of two pairs of ties. Rebacked. 18th-cent. decorated paper pastedowns and contiguous flyleaves.