SAAVEDRA FAJARDO (Diego de).

Idea de un principe politico christiano. Munich, s.n., March 1640, and in Milan, April 1642. In-4, ivory vellum, smooth spine with title in ink, smooth edges (Binding of the period). Landwehr, Romanic, n°651. - Praz, p. 483. Second edition, partly original, of this famous treatise of education for the use of princes, composed by the greatest politician of the reign of Philip IV of Spain. The author explains how to conform to the Christian ideal by governing in a wise manner, far from the cynical theories of Machiavelli. The work was first published in Munich in 1640. The illustration includes an unsigned engraved title-frontispiece and 103 intaglio emblems in the text, including one at the head of the preface to the reader and another on the theme of death at the end. A BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLE IN EPOQUE VELIN, from the baroque library of Jean-Claude Carrière (I, 2013, n°114). Game in the first booklet.