Medices Legatus de Exsilio.

Alcyonius.

Medices Legatus de Exsilio.

Venice

Aldus Manutius and Andrea Torresani

November 1522

Bellisario Bulgarini (in Latin, Bellisarius de Bulgarinis, 1539–1619), a patrician from Siena, poet, littérateur, and diplomat, was a member of the Accademia degli Intronati in his native city, and a member of the Accademia Veneziana in the Most Serene Republic. He collected a substantial library during the last half-century of his life, and maintained the interesting habit of annotating his books with the names of the sources from whom he acquired them and the prices he paid. Bulgarini bought this then-70-year-old book in 1592 from Luca Bonetto, a printer in Siena, for one silver lira. Pietro Alcionio (1487–1527), Aristotelian scholar and professor of Greek at Florence from 1522 until his death, created this imaginary dialogue between Giulio de’ Medici (subsequently Pope Clement VII, and cousin of Leo X) and Lorenzino de’ Medici. Set in 1512, when Giulio was a papal legate, it is dedicated to Nicolaus Schönberg, professor of theology at Rome.

From the collection of H. George Fletcher.