Giovanni Mazzaferro. A new (and as yet unknown) annotated specimen of Vasari's 'Lives'

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Giovanni Mazzaferro
A New (and as yet Unknown) Annotated Specimen of Vasari's Lives

A letter to Giorgio Vasari written by Michelangelo Buonarroti (detail)
Source: http://www.artielettere.it/?p=2089

Other contributions on Giorgio Vasari in this blog

The Inventory of the annotated copies of Vasari's Lives, which I published a couple of weeks ago, is a living document open to all contributions. Clearly, the ultimate purpose of the inventory is to try using the Internet to find and record pieces of information which would otherwise be difficult to find.

In this sense, I cannot but thank Mr Umberto Pregliasco, owner of the Antiquarian Bookstore Pregliasco of Turin, who wrote to me on 17 June, signalling that he possessed a copy of an annotated Giuntina decades ago. I am reproducing below the notes given to me by Mr Pregliasco. The sample reported appears to be of particular interest. I am including it in my inventory with the number 18. Unfortunately, the owner of the bookstore ignores when and to whom the sample was sold.

[Sample 18]
Anonymous of the Pregliasco Antiquarian Bookstore

Commented edition: Giuntina

Preserved at: Missing
References: see reference card of the bookshop

Notes:

This is the text of the card (bolds are mine):

"3 parts in 3 volumes, 4° (238 x 158mm). Letterpress titles with woodcut borders. 145 woodcut portraits of artists within alegorical border blocks with letterpress captions [letterpress cancellans caption slip on III/ii 3R4r] after Vasari [?by Cristoforo Coriolano or Cristoforo Chrieger], including one repeat of Vasari's and 8 borders with blank cartouches. Allegorical woodcut of the awakening of the souls of dead artists within a border block on verso of I/i-ii title repeated on III/ii/6H3v. Woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials, including tailpiece on I/i-ii/3V2v. Woodcut printer's device on III/i title, III/i/2Av, III/ii/6H3r. One portrait partially coloured in an early hand, portraits added in pen-and-ink to blank cartouches on I/i-ii/2B1r, 2F2v and III/i/b4v, marginal pen-and-ink copy of the Salviati portrait on III/ii/4K1r, most portraits and some tailpieces hatched and/or decorated with pen-and-ink by an early hand, Final line of text on I/i-ii/K4v stamped in, manuscript corrections of 'Fiorentinore' on I/i-ii/2T3r and 'gratioso' on III/ii/5Y3r. (Occasional light spotting or marking, light dampstaining causing small marginal losses on a few leaves, pt I title slightly frayed at edges, pt III/ii title trimmed touching border, lacking final blank III/ii/6H4.) 18th-century English calf gilt, boards with blind scallop and fleurs-de-lys rolls within double gilt rules, gilt board edges, spines gilt in compartments, gilt morocco lettering-pieces in one, others decorated with clusters of acorn tools and fleuron cornerpieces, red edges (scuffed and rubbed causing minor losses, splitting on joints causing small losses). 

Provenance: d'Ap[--] M[--]gini of Florence (early, crossed-through ownership inscription on title of I/i-ii) -- extensive late 16th-/early 17-century manuscript annotations in Italian -- Hon. Charles Hamilton (c.1704-1786, bookplates)."

The present copy is distinguished by the addition of four pen-and-ink sketches of artists by a skilled, contemporary Florentine hand, and extensive annotations to the text, demonstrating a familiarity with the subject matter in the corrections and additions made."

The annotations amend the text or add new pieces of information about the works seen by the note taker, when and where he saw them. Particulary detailed the annotations about Brunelleschi (vol. I pp. 318-320) and on Marcantonio Raimondi and his relationship with Dürer.

Portrait of Charles Hamilton, called 'The Honourable"
Source: http://general-southerner.blogspot.it/2013/05/painshill-park-surrey.html

The bookseller’s card only provides information about one portion of the life of the specimen. 

Charles Hamilton (1704-1786), belonging to the family of the Counts of Abercorn, was not known above all as a member of the Irish Parliament from 1727 to 1760, but mainly because he set up one of the most famous landscape garden of England, the Painshill estate in Surrey. From the information that can be traced on the Internet it seems that Hamilton made the Grand Tour to Italy between 1725 and 1727, coming back with a rich collection of antiques. It seems logical to assume that, on the occasion of the Italian trip, he also purchased the sample of the Giuntina, which contains his bookplate and was later on transferred to the Pregliasco Library, following a path we do not know. Hamilton encountered very soon financial problems, also in relation to the enormous expenses linked to the maintenance of the Painshill park. In 1766 he was forced to mortgage the park to the famous banker Henry Hoare (the Hoare Bank is still a fully functioning private bank) and in 1771 he had to sell it eventually. The fate of the sample owned by Hamilton is obviously unknown. A very tentative hypothesis (which does not however explain how the books came back in Italy) is that the copy in the hands of Hamilton was passed to the Hoare family. A Giuntina edition is precisely remembered on page 636 of the Catalogue of the Library Hoare at Stourhead, without further indications. The catalogue was compiled and printed for private use in 1840 by John Bowyer Nichols and related to the collection of books by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, descendant of Henry.

Equally unsatisfying is the search for the possible author of the annotations, generically referred to as a contemporary in the bibliographic record. If we accept the hypothesis that Hamilton has bought the work during his Grand Tour (1725-1727) it follows that "Ap [..] M [..] gini, of Florence" must have drafted the notes before. One can easy assume that the author, if not an artist, was at least a scholar. That's all. An index of names  in the Lives of Gabburri (written between 1730 and 1740 and, by their true nature, a very complete list of also minor artists) has been produced by a group of scholars and is now available online on the Memofonte site, but does not include similar names. An entirely unproven hypothesis, which could be kept in mind, is that the correct reading of the name is " An[..] M[..]ni of Florence" and in that case one would think immediately of Annibale Mancini from Florence, who drafted in early 1600 important footnotes in an exemplary of the Corsiniana Library (see example 13).

Of course, the identification of the current ownership and location of the work would help shading light on the matter.