First edition of the collected correspondence of humanist and papal reformer Gregorio Cortese, edited and published posthumously by his niece, Hersilia Cortese del Monte, and prefaced by her warm, personal letter to the dedicatee, Ugo Boncompagni, or Pope Gregory XIII. Hersilia, forced into marriage at 22 and widowed at age 23, swore off marriage for the rest of her life, dedicating herself to classical and humanistic studies, as well poetic compositions. Some of her poetry was anthologized in Muzio Manfredi's Per donne romane, printed at Bologna in 1575. Her uncle Gregorio seemed to have corresponded with everyone who was anyone, but Hersilia was known to have had a rich epistolary life herself, corresponding in later life with Aretino, Caro, Ruscelli, and especially Speroni, who adored Hersilia and named his granddaughter after her. Hersilia, in her epistle dedicatory, highlights the warmth she felt for her uncle Gregorio with the same intensity of emotion that she expresses her animosity towards the unnamed persons who she felt had maliciously hidden his letters from her (this would very likely have been through the offices of the papacy of Paul IV, who had demonstrated extreme enmity with the Del Monte clan), and her wish—now that his letters had been discovered by virtue of eruditorum præstantiumque virorum—that his correspondence would be received by posterity in the same beneficent spirit and good heart with which he wrote them. Hersilia also penned the short vita of Gregorio that precedes the index. A good copy of an important collection of letters, edited and ushered into publication by a woman at the center of cultural life in Rome and Venice in the late Renaissance. Three copies located in US libraries: Stanford, Newberry, and the Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary (Evanston, Ill.).   

Quarto: 208 x 158 x 22 mm (binding), 208 x 157 x 20 mm  (text block). a⁴ b² A-Z⁴ Aa-Yy⁴ Z²; [xii], 362, [2]. Last leaf Z₂ blank and present. Contemporary limp vellum, covers soiled and cockled; later blank sheet pasted to inside upper cover; old library shelfmark on label pasted to spine. Interior: pale damp here and there, more pronounced to last two leaves; some dog-ears, otherwise a crisp copy.

EDIT16 13577; Melfi, Eduardo, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Rome: 1983 (via Treccani-online under Ersilia Cortese); Cesareo, F. C., Humanism and Catholic Reform. The Life and Work of Gregorio Cortese (1483-1548), New York: 1990, p. 183.

Item #384