Treasures from Italy's great libraries
By: edited by Lorenzo Crinelli ; text by Anna Rita Fantoni.
Contributors: Crinelli, Lorenzo.; Fantoni, Anna Rita.
Publisher: Vendome Press; Distributed in the USA and Canada by Rizzoli International Publications through St. Martin's Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
Subjects: Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval -- Catalogs; Illumination of books and manuscripts, Renaissance -- Catalogs; Illustrated books -- Italy -- Bibliography -- Catalogs; Rare books -- Italy -- Bibliography -- Catalogs; Libraries -- Italy -- Catalogs
Description: A decade in the making, this volume presents in color a selection of the most important works from twelve of Italy's finest libraries, including the Biblioteca Apostolica in the Vatican, the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence - the repository of the Medici collections - and Venice's Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

Among these masterpieces of the illuminator's and bookmaker's art, executed throughout Europe and spanning eleven centuries, are several fine Byzantine manuscripts, many splendid biblical and liturgical texts and a number of rare early printed books.

Highlights include such famous works as the Lorsch Gospels, the Hungarian Legendary, both parts of the Visconti Hours, Botticelli's illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy and a collection of songs with music produced for Lorenzo de Medici; while other subjects range from classical texts, chronicles and romances to books of astrology, herbals, legal and medical texts, maps, memoirs, military treatises and heraldry.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 284) and index.