VIRGILE.

L'Eneide ridotta in ottava rima. Venice, Giovanni Battista Ciotti, 1597. In-4, brown calf, framed with three gilt fillets with spandrels with azure background with scrolls and palmettes, central plate with azure background with scrolls with cartouche in reserve in the middle, traces of ties, ornamented spine, modern red title-piece, gilt edges (Italian binding of the time). First complete edition of the translation in rhymed verse of the Aeneid by Hercules Udine, a Mantuan poet who lived at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the following century. It is decorated with a title-frontispiece engraved in intaglio, with the arms of the dedicatee, Prince Vincent de Gonzague, Duke of Mantua and Montferrat. Printed on two columns in italics, the argument of each book printed in roman characters in a typographic frame. The copy bears the bookplate of the lawyer Nicolas-Joseph Foucault (1643-1721), high civil servant under Louis XIV and one of the great bibliophiles of his time. From the library of the Earls of Macclesfield, with the bookplate of the North Library and the dry stamp on the first three leaves. Angular spotting, missing leaf a6 containing the engraved portrait of Udine on verso. Retouching in gold in the binding plates. Hinges and headpieces restored, modern title-piece.