Camillo BaldI (or Baldo) (1550-1637), Giovanni Battista Coriolano (1579 c. - ...

Camillo BaldI (or Baldo) (1550-1637), Giovanni Battista Coriolano (1579 c. - 1649)

In physiognomica Aristotelis commentarii a Camillo Baldo ordinariam philosophiam in patrio Bononiensis archigymnasio profitente lucubrati. Opus multiplici doctrina referentum: Physiologicis, Medicis, virisq. Politici aequè utile ac iucundum. Hieronimi Tamburini diligentia & sumptibus nunc primum in lucem editum ... Bononiae, apud Sebastianum Bonomium, 1621

 

 

§ 4to (21x29,5x5 cm.); [16], 562, [2] (blank), [20] pp., signature: …^1-6, X^3-4 (misnumbered for X^1-2) A-Z^1-6, Aa-Zz^1-6, Aaa^1-6 (Aaa⁶ blank), a^1-6, b^1-4; engraved title page, signed Coriolanus (Giovanni Battista Coriolano), woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initialswoodcut schematic illustration, large woodcut printer’s device on last page. Ancient ownership signature on title page. Contemporary vellum, handwritten title on spine. Endpapers renewed. Fine copy.

First edition. Camillo Baldi taught philosophy and medicine in Bologna. “His works present him above all under the three guise of Aristotelian commentator, initiator of graphology from afar and courtier theorist of politics. ... But the most important work of B. still remains the commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise on physiognomy (In Physiognomica Aristotelis Commentarii), ... Nothing original when one thinks that it was the time in which practical philosophy was confused with theoretical medicine and vice versa, and researches on this area multiplied, ... What is relevant is the completely Aristotelian character that such interest assumes in B.; but it is also an obvious point for who, in accordance with tradition, occupied the chair that had once been of Pietro Pomponazzi. The passage from Aristotle's text to partial investigations on the subject was, moreover, a constant concern of him that he was even able to express in a speculative way.” (Tronti, translated). Giovanni Battista Coriolano, author of the engraved title page, was a painter and engraver: “...in any case the popularity of C. was great, who also worked as a vulgarizer, through the figurative intervention, of cultural themes in vogue at his time ...” (Garzya Romano, translated).

& Mario Tronti Baldi, Camillo in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani; Krivatsy, 615; Wellcome, I, 650; Thorndike, VIII, p. 451; Chiara Garzya Romano Coriolano, Giovanni Battista in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani.