#MB17
1560
Folio (ca. 31x21 cm). 1 pp. With the integral blank leaf. Brown ink on laid paper, text in Italian in secretarial hand, signed by Giovio, addressed and docketed on verso of the second blank leaf. Fold marks, second leaf with the lower blank corner clipped and minor staining from the removed seal, but overall a very good letter.
Letter by Giulio Giovio‚ the bishop of Nocera, Campania (1552-1560), writer and nephew of noted prelate, historian and physician Paolo Giovio (1483-1552). Giulio Giovio inherited the title of the bishop of Nocera from his uncle (Paolo Giovio held the seat in 1528-1552). Among poetical works of Giulio Giovio is an extensive poem, a part of which is dedicated to Giovanni da Verrazzano who travelled to North America in 1524, thus becoming “the first European since the Norse expeditions to North America around AD 1000 to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, including New York Bay and Narragansett Bay.” A contemporary of the events, Giulio Giovio collected news about the voyage directly from the testimony of Verrazzano’s brother, Jerome. The eleven octaves of Giovio’s poem related to Giovanni da Verrazzano were published by A. Bacchiani under title “I fratelli da Verrazzano e l'eccidio di una spedizione italo-francese in America (1528)” (Boll. Della Società geografica italiana, s. 4, II (1925), pp. 395-399). The later years of Giulio's life he spent at his uncle’s villa, called Museo because of a large collection of painting and antiquities, including one of the first collection of artefacts from the New World, where he sorted the unpublished works of his uncle.
