De discorsi […], sopra alle cose appartenenti ad una città libera, e famiglia nobile; tradotti in lingua toscana da Giovanni Fabrini Fiorentino, à beneficio de figliuoli di Messer Antonio Massimi nobile Romano, M. Domenico, e M. Horatio, libri nove

8vo (146x95 mm). Cc. 278, [4]. Segnatura: A-Z8 AA-LL8 MM10. Mancano le carte G5 e G6 (237-238). Colophon alla carta MM9r. Marca tipografica al titolo e al verso dell'ultima carta. Legatura del Settecento in pergamena rigida con tassello e titolo in oro al dorso, tagli rossi picchiettati. Firma di appartenenza “Anto Rosso 1553” al frontespizio, altra nota “sia restituito a. Ant.o Rosso overo a Xoforo Fra[n]chino” ripetuta sia al titolo che alla MM7r. Alcune annotazioni marginali coeve (in parte rifilate). Titolo un po' sporco, aloni all'inizio e alla fine del volume.
Prima edizione in italiano, nella traduzione di Giovanni Fabbrini, di questa celebre opera, una delle più emblematiche del pensiero politico e pedagogico dell'umanesimo. Composta tra il 1462 e il 1468, fu pubblicata per la prima volta nell'originale latino nel 1518.
“Patrizi's text deals with the disposition and government of a city-state Republic, understood in the terms of the contemporary political reality of fifteenth-century Italy, describing and analyzing the political, social and economic conditions that prevail in such an urban context. Significantly, the treatise does not confine itself to a theoretical discussion of the city as locus of government, but examines the urban fabric itself, giving ample space to a discussion of the role of the architect in planning the city, and the disposition of streets, piazzas and individual buildings, both public and private. Architecture and government are thus bound together, so that a well-governed city will be architecturally well-ordered, and vice versa [...] While, in some respects, the most original feature of Patrizi's treatise is the way in which he links social and political issues of government to the question of urban life. Patrizi viewed the city-state as the natural resolution of man's need to be a ‘social animal', and in Book I he outlines the ways in which urban society should be ordered to maintain equality among citizens. While Book II deals with the varieties of professions that should exist in the city, Book III instead focuses on public offices and the procedures that should be observed in nomination and election... Indeed the core three books relate specifically to the family, in its public and private role. While Book IV discusses the function of the family and the paterfamilias in the government of private affairs, Book V and VI project the family onto the public scene. So that virtues honed in the family setting are given a public purpose. It is thus in Book V that the public virtues of government, discussed in Book III, are revealed as being an attribute to the patrician class, showing that these families are naturally suited to rule. A clear statement in favor of the ancestral aristocracy's capacity to rule come in chapter One of Book VI, where Patrizi provides a definition of urban society as being made up of three classes: the ancient nobility, a middle-ranking group of worthy citizens, and a majority suited only to being governed... However, it is in the last section of the treatise that Patrizi addresses themes relevant to an understanding of the Pope's architectural patronage in Siena. Specifically, chapter Eleven of Book VIII discusses private architecture in the urban context. Patrizi advises the families in public office should invest in a palace suited to their status, but this should be a ‘beautiful home'. He recommends the use of ‘sancta mediocritas' (a golden mean), so that a building will display neither the opulence nor the avarice of its owner, but rather that the palace will beautify the collective image of the city” (F. Nevola, Siena, Constructing the Renaissance City, New Haven, CT & London, 2007, pp. 87-88).
Edit 16, CNCE 26955; Universal STC, no. 762223; A.A. Renouard, Annales de l'imprimerie des Aldes, Paris, 1803, 131:3.