Giovio, Paolo. Vitae illustrium virorum. Tomus duobus comprehensae, & proprijs imaginibus illustratae. 2 vols. in 1. with title woodcut border and 29 portrait woodcuts by Tobias Stimmer. Basel, P. Perna and H. Petri, 1578 (at end of part 1: 1576, title of vol. 2: 1577). Folio. [6] vols, 427 p.; [4] vols, 176 p., [13] vols, pp. 177-225. - INCLUDED: Ders. 1st Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium. Ibid, 1596. with title border and 129 portrait woodcuts by T. Stimmer. [4] ll., 258 p., [5] ll. - 2nd Elogia virorum literis illustrium. Ibid, 1577. with title border and 63 portrait woodcuts by T. Stimmer u. C. v. Sichem (3). [4] ll., 149 p., [1] fol. - 3rd Descriptiones: videlicet Britanniae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, Orchadum, item Moscoviae et Larii Lacus. Ibid, 1578. 156 p., [4] ll. - Blind stamped pigskin binding of the time over wooden boards, with hs. title on spine. VD16 G 2078, 2067, 2062 u. 2049 - Adams 667 - Lipperheide Cg 44 - Hieronymus GG 276 (Elogia). - First and only edition with the fine potraits by Stimmer set in alternating Renaissance borders of fundamental iconographic importance due to the authenticity of their portraits. - 10 frames remained unfilled (not counted above). - The "Descriptiones" form the last part of the edition of works from 1578 and are included here at the beginning. - Giovio, appointed Bishop of Nocera in 1528, had begun the construction of a "Musaeum" on the shores of Lake Como in 1537. "Its ornaments - probably in the library - were, on panels set into the walls, portraits of the most eminent contemporaries with whose lives Giovio was concerned and with whom he thus surrounded himself face to face [...]. Giovio's Musaeum no longer exists. The four groups of his portraits - of scholars and poets, humanists, statesmen and generals, artists, whom he, in contrast to some other patrons, collectors, and publicists of his time, at least as far as they were contemporaries, had portrayed authentically, live on only in the copies made by later collectors and in the woodcuts created for these later Basel prints of his Elogia after sketches made in Como before the originals" (Jerome). - Clean, well preserved copy.