De rerum natura libri sex. Unà cum paraphrastica explanatione, & animadversionibus.
Florence: Amatore Massa, 1647.
Price: $16,000.00
Quarto: 22.7 x 16.7 cm. [8], 680 pp. Collation: π4, A-Z4, Aa-Kk4, Ll2, π1 (dedication leaf), Mm-Zz4, Aaa-Zzz4, Aaaa-Llll4, Mmmm4, [Nnnn]-[Oooo]4, Pppp4, Qqqq6 (lvs. 4Q3 and 4Q4 reversed). The etchings are printed on the rectos of leaves 4M4-4O4, with explanatory letterpress on the versos.
SOLE EDITION.
A fine copy in contemporary limp vellum (light soiling, minor wear, some imperfections to spine). A large, fine copy with scattered light foxing, a little marginal soiling in places, and a negligible rust hole at the foot of one leaf. Plates very slightly shaved (to or just within the plate mark) not affecting the images. Complete with the half title, the unsigned leaf with the dedication to Giovanni Andrea Ricco inserted after p. 268, and 8 full-paged etchings of Egyptian antiquities, the first of which is signed by Giovanni Batista Balatri (1627–1669). A ninth engraving shows a sculpture of the Phrygian god Attis. With ornate woodcut head and tailpieces and woodcut initials. 17th c. marginal annotations on p. 337 and 469. With the ownership inscription “Ex libris Nicolai Berigardi Molinensis Galli”(Nicolas Bérigard of Moulins) on the half-title.
Sole edition of the Italian physician and natural philosopher Giovanni Nardi’s (1585 - 1654) commentary on Lucretius’ classic of Epicurean philosophy, “De rerum natura” (On the Nature of Things), which includes Nardi’s ground-breaking commentary on ancient Egyptian funerary practices, including mummification. The commentary is outfitted with 8 plates of Egyptian antiquities held in private Florentine collections, including those of the author and the author’s patron, Duke of Florence, Fernando II de’ Medici. Nardi’s is the earliest study of its kind written in Italy.
Nardi’s edition of Lucretius’ poem was the first to appear in Italy since 1515. Aspects of the poem, such as the author’s assertion that the soul is physical and mortal, proved controversial in Renaissance Italy, led to it being banned by the Florentine Church Synod of 1516-1517. His commentary holds the distinction of being the first commentary on the poem written by a scientist rather than a humanist. The book was printed by Amador Massa, who had earlier published the “De Sphaera” of Evangelista Torricelli, who was present during the printing of Landi’s Lucretius. In the course of the commentary, Nardi considers a number of contemporary scientific ideas and problems, including an analysis of the cause of plague, with recourse to Lucretius’ “atomism”.
“That Nardi’s edition of Lucretius was intended to appeal also to those engaged in naturalistic and medical studies was underscored by its dedications to the naturalist, collector, and member of the Academia dei Lincei, Cassiano dal Pozzo (at the beginning of Book V) and to the physician Baldo Baldi, personal physician to Urban VIII. It is therefore not surprising that the book aroused considerable interest among the followers of Galileo, who were finally able to access an edition of Lucretius’s text printed in the very city where the debate over scientific atomism was far from extinguished (despite the vigilant censorship of the ecclesiastical authorities and the Church’s condemnation of Galileo).”(Beretta, Gli scienziati e l’edizione del De Rerum Natura, in Lucrezio, la natura e la scienza, p. 189)
Egyptology & the culture of collecting in 17th c. Florence:
Nardi’s text and etchings allow us to reconstruct the provenance of some of the Egyptian antiquities then being imported, purchased, and traded in Florence in the mid-17th c. They also reflect the culture of collecting and information-sharing of the period. Nardi developed his images and ideas in dialogue with the aforementioned Cassiano del Pozzo, creator of the astonishing “paper museum”, and gifted some of his preparatory drawings to Pozzo for inclusion in his collection. The highly-detailed engravings were copied by other researcher-collectors, perhaps most notably Athanasius Kircher, who used them in his “Oedipus Aegyptiacus” and “Sphinx Mystagoga”. Nardi, who served as physician to the Duke, oversaw the unwrapping of at least one mummy (shown on Plate II) in an effort to ferret out the secrets of mummification, a mystery of great interest to pharmacists and physicians of the period, since mummies themselves were believed to have curative powers.
The eight plates of Egyptian antiquities illustrate not only mummies but also Egyptian sarcophagi, shabtis, statuettes, and numerous hieroglyphic inscriptions. These antiquities were held “in the Real Galleria Medicea and the Ergasterium, i.e. the Fonderia of the Grand Duke, as well as in the residences of Nardi and Niccolò Gaddi (1537–1591). The captions to the plates briefly describe the objects or mummies and specify where they were displayed: ‘Nostrum haec ornant Musaeum [these adorn our museum]’ and ‘[…] in nostro Musaeo’ [‘in our museum’] correspond to the Real Galleria of Ferdinando II; ‘In Ergasterio S.M.D.[in the laboratory of the Most Serene Duke]’ indicates the Fonderia of the Grand Duke, where the mummies were mainly unwrapped and anatomically examined; ‘Haec apud nos [these are in our home]’ and ‘Nostris in aedibus [in our residence]’ refer to Nardi’s collection, and ‘Apud DD. Gaddios’ to Niccolò Gaddi’s (1537–1591) house-museum…
“The first of Nardi’s eight plates identifies the necropolis at Memphis as the point of origin of at least some materials depicted in the other seven plates. The Egyptian landscape in the image is reproduced based on reports from travelers of the time, with understandable imperfections. Nevertheless, it reveals the excavation context: a tomb consisting of a shaft cut into the bedrock of the Memphite Plateau and several underground burial chambers not far from the pyramids. Inside the tomb, several human mummies and a qrsw-type coffin adorned with statuettes are visible. On each of the coffin’s four corner pillars, there is a statuette of the god Sokar in the form of a mummified falcon known as akhem; at the centre of the vaulted lid, a statuette of a falcon with spread wings is placed; at opposite ends of the lid, there are statues of a jackal and Ptah-Sokar-Osiris.
“The second plate depicts a mummy covered with a mask and other elements in cartonnage, along with a faience bead net on its outer wrappings. Nardi associates it with the wooden coffin shown on Plate I, Fig. G. On stylistic grounds, this mummy possibly dates to the early Ptolemaic period (c. 306/04 BCE). The same plate features another mummy that lacks any ornaments and is inside a wooden coffin with the lid just lifted (Plate II, Fig. II). This coffin, currently housed at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence, likely dates from the 27th to 30th dynasty (525–343 BCE), extending into the early Ptolemaic period (306/04–30 BCE). These coffins and their mummies were stored in Ferdinando II’s Fonderia during Nardi’s time, as noted in the captions of the illustrations…
“Plate IIII illustrates objects in Nardi’s possession. It depicts three wooden panels that may have belonged to a canopic or shabti box (Plate IIII, Fig. III); a stone ribbed stele, which is in a seemingly precarious state of preservation and may date to the Late or Ptolemaic period (Plate IIII, Fig. IIII); and a stone slab featuring a bull slaughter scene from a tomb of the Old Kingdom (5th dynasty, 2504–2347 BCE; Plate IIII, Fig. V)….
“Nardi’s interest in Egyptian funerary ritual, especially the practice of embalming, is further attested by a cartonnage wesekh-type collar, a canopic jar with a jackal-headed lid, and several statues of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris illustrated in Plate V. The central scene on the collar, which depicts two men engaged in eviscerating a body, is not rendered in an Egyptian style but instead resembles anatomical dissections conducted in the Fonderia (Plate V, Fig. II). Regarding his several statues of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, Nardi shares his opinion (in a letter to Dal Pozzo) on their function, diverse aesthetic characteristics, and hieroglyphic inscriptions…
“Nardi attributes the small bronzes in Plate VI, Fig. II – the god Hor-pa-khered, the goddess Isis nursing Hor-pa-khered, and an Apis bull – to the Museum of the Grand Duke…. Nardi’s [own] collection also included numerous shabti figurines, presumably twenty, nearly all illustrated in Plate VII. Their hieroglyphic inscriptions, quite clearly reproduced on Nardi’s plate, enable us to attribute the statuettes to five or six different owners and identify several titles and names. For example, the four statuettes with a T-shaped inscription belonged to Djed-bastet-inek-set, daughter of Neith-ir-dis. A shabti from the same owner is depicted in a pencil and black ink drawing in a Corsini manuscript kept at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome, which dates to the 18th century and documents objects from the Grand Duke’s collections. So far, another shabti in faience dated to the 30th dynasty (380–343 BCE) and belonging to the same owner was bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) to the British Museum in 1753…
“The two fragments of a water clock inscribed with the name of Alexander the Great in Plate VIII, Fig. I–II are attributed to the Gaddi Museum by Nardi. Niccolò Gaddi played a significant role in Florence’s artistic and cultural life during the latter half of the 16th century. Much of his notable collections, which included some Egyptian antiquities, was organised by him in the so-called ‘casa dell’orto’ next to the family palace in Piazza Madonna degli Aldobrandini, where they remained until his death. The dispersal of Gaddi’s estate began in 1636–1637. Nardi describes one of the two fragments (Plate VIII-Fig. I) in a letter sent to Dal Pozzo in February 1644 and attributes both to Gaddi in 1647. The two water clock fragments are now in the Hermitage Museum, which received them in 1888 from the collection of Prince Golytsin. The other objects in Plate VIII, Fig. III–V, belonging to the Real Galleria, have yet to be identified….”(Picchi, Giovanni Nardi and Ancient Egypt at the Medici Court, p. 50 ff.).
Schweiger III, 575; See also Joachim Śliwa, “Giovanni Nardi (c. 1580 – c. 1655) and His Studies on Ancient Egypt.”