A fine reglé copy, printed on strong blue paper

Ioannes, Diaconus (ca. 965-1018).

Chronicon Venetum omnium quae circumferuntur vetustissimum et Johanni Sagornino vulgo tributum e Mss. codice Apostoli Zeno V.Cl. nunc primum Cum Mss. Codicibus Vaticanis collatum, Notisque illustratum in lucem profert. H. Fr. Zanetti Al. F. Venice, 1765.

Small 4° (218x131 mm). Printed on blue paper. XIX, [1], 131, [1] pages. Woodcut headpiece and decorated initial on fol. A2r. Fine contemporary, possibly French, red straight-grain morocco, over pasteboards. Covers within triple gilt fillet. Spine with five small raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt with diagonal of dotted fillets, small floral tools, and dots. Title in gold on red morocco lettering-piece. Marbled pastedowns and flyleaves, board edges gilt-ruled, inside dentelles. Green silk bookmark. Yellow edges. A very good, wide-margined copy, printed on strong paper and reglé throughout in red ink. A few minor spots; some leaves slightly browned and waterstained on the lower margin. Small tear to the lower margin of fol. A5, without any loss.

A luxury copy, printed on strong blue paper, of the first edition of the Chronicon Venetum, a significant medieval source for Venetian history. This Chronicle of Venice was written in the early eleventh century, and its composition is generally attributed to Ioannes Diaconus.

The Chronicon Venetum was edited by the antiquarian Girolamo Francesco Zanetti (1713-1781) on the basis of a manuscript then in the possession of the Venetian scholar Apostolo Zeno (1669-1750), whose textual version was collated with two codices preserved in the Vatican Library. A few blue-paper copies of the Chronicon of 1765 are recorded, but the one offered here, finely bound and reglé in red ink throughout, features a very distinguished, if still unidentified provenance.

This Venetian chronicle enjoyed lasting popularity; included among its legacy of readers was the especially noteworthy English critic and writer John Ruskin (1819-1900), who referenced the Chronicon Venetum in his celebrated work on Venetian art and architecture, The Stones of Venice, which first appeared in 1851.

Cicogna 583; B. Rosada, “Il Chronicon Venetum di Giovanni Diacono”, Ateneo veneto, 28 (1990), pp. 79-94; Ioannes Diaconus, La cronaca veneziana, ed. M. De Biasi, Venezia 1986-1988.