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 (151x102 mm). 278, [4] leaves. Collation: A-Z8 AA-LL8 MM10. Colophon at l. MM9r. Printer's device on title page and last leaf verso. Contemporary limp vellum, inked title on spine and on the lower edge (soiled, traces of ties). On the front panel and on title page ownership's inscription “Jo: Petri Clericij”. Marginal rust spots on leaves AA1-8, a few very light damp stains. A very good, genuine copy.
RARE FIRST ITALIAN EDITION of one of the most important documents for the history of political and educational thought of fifteenth century Humanism. It was begun around 1462, completed in 1468 and first published by Jean Savigny in 1518 under the title De institutione reipublicae libri novem. It has often been seen as a precursor of Machiavelli's Principe and had a great influence on Thomas Elyot's Gouvernour (cf. J. Schlotter, Thomas Elyot's ‘Governor' in seinem Verhältnis zu Francesco Patrizi, Freiburg/Br., passim).
The work covers the whole field of civic Humanism discussing all questions of state administration, law (moral and civil), town and country planning (cf. P.N. Pagliara, Vitruvio: da testo a canone, in: “Memoria dell'antico nell'arte italiana”, S. Settis, ed., Torino, 1986, III, pp. 28-30), and the management of a family (the duties of a husband and of a wife, the education of children, cf. G. Müller, Bildung und Erziehung im Humanismus der italienischen Renaissance, Wiesbaden, 1969, pp. 117, 36). Patrizi recommends protection for merchants and tradesmen who contribute to the enriching of a country, considers that the state should provide the means of subsistence to the population if necessary, and also deals with the importance of culture (fine arts, music, theatre, literature, libraries), medicine and the great physicians of the past, gymnastic exercises, etc. (cf. M. Capelli, ‘Ad actionem secundum virtutem tendit'. La passione, la sapienza e la prudenza: ‘vita activa' e ‘vita contemplativa' nel pensiero umanistico, in: “The ways of life in classical political philosophy”, F. Lisi, ed., Sankt Augustin, 2004, pp. 203-30).
“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 aristocr