Description

Two volumes, complete. An exhaustive history of the Gherardesca family, written in order to establish that family's nobility and rights. With the rare second volume, an extensive compendium of documentation with four engraved plates. The most famous member of the family in question, of course, was Ugolino della Gherardesca, a traitor immortalized by Dante in Inferno XXXII-III, where he eternally chews on the head of Archbishop Ruggieri, who had imprisoned him in a tower without food until he ate the bodies of his children. xv, 615; 1, 317, 18 + four engraved plates (one folding). Printed on fine laid paper. Elaborate engraved title-page in first volume. Large 4to. Attractively bound in vellum-backed decorated boards. Light wear to bindings and a little soiling to spines, but structurally perfect. Internally FINE AND BRIGHT, with no defects. RARE.