Given as a gift by the author

Papafava dei Carraresi, Giovanni Roberto (1735-after 1793).

Dissertazione. Est aliquid prodire tenus. [Padua, 1771].

Small folio (306x215 mm). Printed on blue paper. IV, 231, [1], [4] pages. The last two leaves (293x215 mm), containing the errata, printed on ordinary paper. Three large folding plates, showing genealogical trees and coats of arms, executed in 1645 by Gaspare Ganassa. Woodcut decorated initials. Head- and tailpieces. Contemporary vellum. Spine with title in gilt on red lettering-piece. A very good copy. The early shelfmark of the volume ‘E.VI.2’ inked on the front pastedown.

Provenance: ‘Dono del Chiarissimo Autore il N.H. Gio. Roberto Papafava’ (contemporary inscription inked on the title-page).

Blue-paper copy of this historical heraldic work, gifted to an unidentified recipient by the author, the Venetian patrician Giovanni Roberto Papafava (or Pappafava) dei Carraresi, a member of the Florentine Academy of Crusca. The Dissertazione bears no indication of printer, and was issued as a polemical reply to Count Federico Della Torre, who had entrusted the historian from Gorizia Rodolfo Coronini (1731-1791) with researching the genealogy of families kinned with the Carraresi. Coronini’s work circulated in manuscript, and some passages denying the prestige of his family convinced Papafava to write his Dissertazione. The work is supplemented with three plates featuring genealogical trees and crests, which reproduces – as stated in the final list of employed sources – an engraving executed in 1645 by the Paduan artist Gaspare Ganassa and owned by the author himself. Interestingly, Papafava includes in this list not only numerous printed chronicles, but also manuscripts preserved in his library, such as “Codice Pappafavio Membr.”, or “Caraldo Gio: Jac. Cron. Ven. MS Tomi due presso di me”.

Brunet IV, 355; Cicogna 3524; Melzi i, p. 318; Spreti 3013; R. Coronini, Fasti Goriziani. Con un saggio in appendice di A. Stasi, Gorizia 2001, esp. pp. 20-22.