De amore Liber [avec] De pulchro Liber

New Elzevirian edition of these two works brought together in a single volume.

Two title-pages printed in red and black with the printer’s mark, five headpieces, five initials and three ornamental tailpieces.

Contemporary full vellum binding with small flaps, flat spine with manuscript author, titles and year of publication, traces of ties.

Binding slightly warped and soiled, the second title on the spine rubbed away, occasional very light spotting to the leaves.

Celebrated works by the Italian philosopher Nifo (1473-1539), in which he praises the beauty of women and love by drawing on the writings of the philosophers of Antiquity. Written in 1529 by a philosopher at the height of his reputation, the two treatises amount to a direct confrontation with the Neoplatonism then in force, which Nifo openly challenges through the notions of love and beauty, both of which he resolutely places under the sign of desire. The treatise on beauty was originally dedicated to Giovanna d’Aragona (1502-1577), goddaughter of King Ferdinand of Naples, in whom Nifo saw the ideal of human beauty, capable of kindling every human desire and therefore love. Beyond this ideal, however, Nifo defines beauty through what is loved: a revolutionary conception at a time when love and beauty were still treated as divine.

A handsome copy of this philosophical treatise on love and beauty, published by a relative of the Elzevirs.