[THE SAINT OF THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE – BOUND FOR POPE CLEMENT X] Vita del b. Filippo Benizi nobil fiorentino quinto generale, e propagatore del sacr'ordine de' Serui di Maria Vergine nuouamente abbellita, e publicata dal p. reuerendissimo general seruita (...) [Life of Blessed Filippo Benizi, a noble Florentine, fifth general, and promoter of the Sacred Order of the Servants of the Virgin Mary, newly embellished and published by the Most Reverend Father General of the Servites (...)].
Bologna: Giacomo Monti, 1668. Small quarto (23 × 17 cm). Contemporary elaborately decorated and richly gilt morocco binding with the armorial supralibros of Pope Clement X. on the front and back covers, from the orbit of the Andreoli/Rospigliosi bindery, with gilt edges; [16], 148 pp. with engraved title page, 14 copper-engraved plates by L[orenzo] Tinti, and numerous initials. Inner lid with ex-libris from the notable collection of the London bookseller W. A. Foyle, Beeleigh Abbey; binding showing traces of former ties; joints, headcaps, edges and corners lightly rubbed, the joints slightly more so; spine with a few minute, almost imperceptible restorations and a few tiny wormholes; slightly toned and faintly fox-stained in places along the edges; else very good. Item #54778
First edition with the copperplate engravings by Lorenzo Tinti, and the second edition of the text, first published in Florence in 1626 under the equally fictitious authorship of Pandolfo Ricasoli Baroni (see Melzi and Moreni). This Vita replaced Arcangelo Giani's "Della historia del b. Filippo Benizii nobile fiorentino", published in 1604, as the authoritative hagiography, updating Giani's account in light of the Processi informativi completed in 1621 in preparation for the canonization proceedings. During this process, the commissions in Florence (Philip's birthplace) and Todi (the place of his death) interviewed more than fifty witnesses and inspected the principal sites of veneration (see the Preface and Sabine Hoffmann, Ein heiliger und sieben Gründer … Munich, 2013, p. 47).
The occasion for this second edition of the Vita, enriched with copperplate engravings, was the renewed – and this time successful – effort undertaken in Rome by the Florentines and the Servite Order to secure the canonization of their fifth Prior General. To him they owed the survival of the Order after the Second Council of Lyon (1274), when the smaller mendicant orders faced compulsory suppression. The Servite Order subsequently received papal confirmation in 1304, and Benizi has therefore often been regarded as its founder. For four centuries, the friars of the Ordo Servorum Mariae and the Florentines sought the canonization of their patron, who, during the conclave at Viterbo (1268–1271), was proposed for election as pope and is therefore said to have hidden in a grotto on Monte Amiata near Siena. The first major success in this long campaign came under Pope Leo X, the first pope of the Florentine Medici family, who in 1516 authorized the celebration of the Feast of Philip with its own Mass and Proper Office. By this time, the veneration of Philip had reached its height in Florence. (For this and the following, see Hoffmann 2013, pp. 15–48.)
In the Servites' mother church, Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, a church central to the Florentines that housed one of the city's most important sanctuaries, the miraculous image of the Annunciation, Cosimo Rosselli (as is well known, the painter who, alongside Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Signorelli, executed three of the frescos in the Sistine Chapel) began, around 1475, a fresco cycle on the life of the city's venerated son. The cycle was continued in 1509–1510 with five frescos by Andrea del Sarto. Together with his pupils Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, he subsequently worked also in the forecourt of the basilica (the "Chiostrino dei Voti") on a second cycle, whose subject was the life of the Virgin Mary. With these two cycles, the pictorial biographies of the two figures of greatest importance to the order were placed before the basilica. When Vasari later wrote at length about the frescos, he referred to Filippo Benizi, more than a century before his canonization, quite matter-of-factly as a saint ("san Filippo"), even though his descriptions of the paintings, or more precisely his iconographic reading of the frescos, suggest that he was not entirely familiar with the associated legends (G. Vasari, Le vite de' piu eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori, Volume 1 of Part 3., Florence 1568, p. 152). Andrea del Sarto's cycle was also significant for the canonization process. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the cycle was studied by the canonization commission, since it constituted an outstanding testimony to Philip's veneration. In more recent scholarship, the depositions from the canonization proceedings conducted between 1619 and 1621 have been used as a source for examining the effect of the cycle on its viewers. The account of the cults in the third part of the Vita likewise makes it possible to understand the liturgical and social interconnections within which the frescoes were received at the time. (On this, see Alana O'Brien, San Filippo Benizi, ‘Honour of the Servi and Florence’: His Cycle and Cult at SS. Annunziata, 1460–1621, Ph.D. diss., La Trobe University, 2 vols., 2001.)
Even before Leo X approved the invocation and liturgy of Benizi, the veneration of relics had already attained such significance that del Sarto depicted it in one of his frescos. On several occasions, the Florentines attempted in vain to obtain the bones preserved in Todi. The Vita, however, lists a series of minor primary relics in Florence, including a thumb and fragments of the forearm and elbow. Del Sarto, by contrast, depicts the veneration of the Florentine “cushion-shaped reliquary capsule” described in the Vita, in which a garment of the Servite was preserved. The condition of the relic is described in detail. Furthermore, additional relics in other Italian cities are listed. The accounts extensively report on the veneration as well as the miracles attributed to the relics. Thus, a garment of the Servite friar preserved in Todi is said to have repeatedly brought about instantaneous healings. In this way, a famous legend, likewise depicted by Andrea del Sarto (and here also by Lorenzo Tinti), appears, as it were, to have been perpetuated: Philip, who had once studied medicine and philosophy in Paris and Padua, is said to have spontaneously healed a freezing leper by giving the beggar his garment for warmth: “No sooner was the poor man clothed than the foul-smelling scales of his disease fell to the ground, his flesh was immediately cleansed, and his limbs were restored as though he had never been leprous.” (p. 56ff.) In its account of the miracle, the Vita explicitly refers to del Sarto’s depiction. Time and again, the Vita returns to the frescoes, including in its account of the “Punishment of the Blasphemers.” According to the text, the Florentine painter rendered the “harrowing event” “so terrifying” that “it can scarcely be viewed without dread.” Both the painting and Lorenzo Tinti’s engraving depict the very moment in which the blasphemers, who had been warned by Philip while resting beneath an elm tree, are struck dead by a bolt of lightning. (p 66f.)
The veneration is said to have begun immediately after his death. Thus, it is reported that the dying man’s final words were answered by a voice, audible to all, proclaiming: “Faithful servant, whom the Virgin has appointed to care for her household, come and enter into the glory of your Lord!” Thereupon, the friars are said to have set aside their grief and, “contrary to the customary order, begun to sing hymns and psalms.” The conclusion of both the fresco cycle and the Vita is formed by the miracle that is said to have occurred during the lying in state of Philip’s body: “When news of the death of the blessed Philip spread through the city of Todi, people of every rank flocked to the Church of San Marco to pay their final respects to his body. Among them was the notary Paolo di Guido, whose daughter Agnoletta had long suffered from a grave illness. Her hands had become completely twisted and paralyzed by the disease, and her feet were so contracted that she could neither walk nor help herself. (…) No sooner had the girl been brought near the holy body than her condition began visibly to change. Her contracted limbs relaxed, her hands opened once again, her feet straightened, and she fully regained her strength. Before the eyes of all those present, she rose, healed and unharmed.” (pp. 115ff.) This account is followed by an extensive list, spanning many pages, of all the miracles said to have occurred after Philip’s death.
Yet despite the great efforts undertaken by the Florentines and the small mendicant order to secure his canonization, the papal decision continued to be delayed even after the thorough investigation had been completed. The petitions of Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici and Emperor Ferdinand III to Urban VIII and Innocent X remained unsuccessful. Only the insistence of Emperor Leopold I with Clement IX brought about the conditions under which Clement X finally canonized Philip on April 12, 1671, together with Cajetan of Thiene (co-founder of the Theatine Order), Rose of Lima (the first female saint of the Americas), Louis Bertrand (a Dominican missionary in Colombia), and Francis Borgia (who above all promoted the Jesuit mission in Central and South America). Philip was the only one among them who had died long before the sixteenth century.
The present copy is distinguished above all by the binding made for Pope Clement X, to be understood within the context of the centuries long campaign for the canonization of the Florentine saint. Although the Andreoli brothers were still active at this time, the present lavishly decorated and highly accomplished binding is more plausibly attributable to the wider circle of the workshop known as the Rospigliosi Bindery. While the compartments framing both the octagonal armorial supralibros and the laurel wreath, filled with flame motifs and terminating in volutes at the corners, display clear affinities with documented bindings associated with the Rospigliosi workshop tradition, including those made for Christina of Sweden and for Popes Clement IX and Clement X, no correspondences could be established in a comparison of the finishing tools. Moreover, the exclusive use of a single roll tool on the spine would be highly unusual. (Guido Vianini Tolomei, I rerri e le botteghe di legatori, in: Legatura romana barocca, Rome 1991, pp. 31-33; José Ruysschaert, Les frères Andreoli, relieurs des Chigi. Cité du Vatican 1992.)
Melzi, Dizionario di opere anonime e pseudonime di scrittori italiani, vol. III, p. 231; Moreni, Bibliografia storicoragionata della Toscana, vol. I, p. 446, cf. vol II, p. 245f.
As of June 2026, KVK, OCLC show six copies in North America.
Price: €6,000.00