STELLA Giovanni Vita Romano[rum] Imperatoru[m].

Brunet, V, 529 ; Sander, III, 7073 ; Essling, II, 1390 ; Mortimer (Italian), II, 485.

First edition. This carefully printed booklet contains a biographical summary of the Western Roman emperors and the Holy Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar to Maximilian I, king of the Romans since 1486, who was elected emperor only in 1508. The author, Giovanni Stella, a Venetian priest and writer active in the first half of the sixteenth century, dedicated his work to Alvise Trevisan, a senator of the Serenissima († 1528), who is buried in the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, in Venice.

The printer Bernardino Vitali (1494-1539) worked in Rome, Rimini, perhaps in Naples, and finally in Venice, where he ended his career. The title is decorated with a large woodcut “of very good workmanship” (Sander) showing an emperor on the throne surrounded by two squires. Three initials, two of them in line and one in black background, complete the ornamentation. A very good copy, with large margins.