The Genoese nobility

Fransone, Agostino (1573-1658).

Nobiltà di Genoua di Agostino Fransone del fu Tomaso nobile Genouese all’Ill.mo & Ecc.mo signor prencipe Doria. Genoa, Pietro Giovanni Calenzano and Giovanni Maria Farroni, 1636.

Folio (476x357 mm). Six unnumbered engraved leaves, including author's portrait, the frontispiece bearing the coat of arms of the dedicatee, the dedication to the Prince Doria, the title-page, the coat-of-arms of the city of Genoa, St. George (patron saint of the city) killing the dragon; thirty engraved plates, numbered I-XXIX (two plates are numbered I); [4] printed pages, with the list of family names. All thirty-six plates engraved by Jérôme David (three after Luciano Borzone). Contemporary marbled boards, recently rebacked in vellum. A very good copy, some marginal foxing.

The first and only edition of this splendid work dedicated to the Genoese nobility, illustrated with fine engravings executed by the French artist Jérôme David (1605-1670), and dedicated to Prince Doria, whose coat of arms is engraved on the frontispiece. The plates also include Fransone's portrait at the age of sixty-three, while the title-page is illustrated with a handsome engraved bird's-eye view of Genoa. The engravings primarily show the coats of arms of the most noble families of Genoa, particularly the twenty-eight which, in 1528, had been selected for the government of the city (Armi delle casate nobili della citta di Genoua annesse al Governo della Rep.: ripartite nelli 28 alberghi instituiti l'anno 1528). The last four pages list the noble families aggregated to the previous ruling houses.

The colophon and the first three plates are dated 1636; the remaining plates were probably printed in 1634, the date of the engraved title.

Cicognara 2032; Colaneri 724; Manno VI, 25222; Spreti 1579; Philobiblon, One Thousand Years of Bibliophily, no. 200.