[VARCHI, Benedetto (1503 - 1565).] Manuscript treatise, a copy in a 16th-century hand, comprising six parts including: a letter from Benedetto Varchi to Luca Martini, Padua, 31 December 1539, referring to Martini's request for an explanation of the new game sent to Varchi by Cosimo Rucellai, the game of Pythagoras; Varchi's 'Trattato delle Proportioni et Proportionalità'; 'Dialogo sopra la particolare dichiaratione del gioco di Pitagora. Interlocutori: Carlo Strozzi, Cosimo Rucellai et Iacopo Vettori'; 'Rithmimachia Pytagorae in 19 regole'; 'Cautiones apprime observande nel gioco di Pytagorae'; 'Sette regale per risolvere le proporzioni geometriche e regole per la prova del risultato, in volgare'; also including arithmetical calculations, and six diagrams and drawings (one loosely inserted) of chequered boards for playing Pythagoras's game; the manuscript written in brown ink, paragraph headings in red with blue initial letters, red initial letters in first words of paragraphs, 101 pages, 220 x 165 mm, the first 15 leaves numbered by the copyist; ownership inscription of Marco Antonio; annotated on 3rd leaf before text 'Marchiono de Marchioni scrisse questo libro'; a few lines of writing (experiments in penmanship) on 4 pages following end of text; (occasional offsetting of ink; a few words and squares in 2 diagrams lost from erosion of ink; 2 diagrams repaired with tape on verso; a few ink blots and smudges); disbound, vellum wrapper (including Petrarch's Canzoniere CXXI inscribed on upper side and other inscriptions in different hands, probably written to practise penmanship; the wrapper made from a leaf taken from a 14th-century register of the Commune of Florence). Modern green morocco box. Benedetto Varchi, humanist and theorist, was among the most active members of the Florentine Academy. He exchanged sonnets with Angelo Bronzino and Bartolomeo Ammanati and assisted Benvenuto Cellini to revise the manuscript of his Vita. His views on Michelangelo, falling between traditional Aristotelianism and empirical admiration for him, were influential in subsequent paragone discussions of the relative merits of painting and sculpture.Varchi explains (in the Dialogue) that the game of Pythagoras, which is described in the second half of the manuscript (f.26v - f.51r), was discovered in Paris in the studio of Jacopo Fabro (the Aristotelian polymath, Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples, 1455-1537), and sent to Palla Rucellai, father of Cosimo (f.27v). Varchi associated Pythagoras's name with it (f.28v) and his own treatise on proportion is relevant to the complexities of the Rithmimachia, or battle of numbers. Such games, devised as much for intellectual exercise as for recreation, were fashionable pastimes in the Cinquecento, enabling the players to display their erudition.The introductory dialogue between Cosimo Rucellai, Carlo Strozzi and Iacopo Vettori takes place in the Orti Orticellari, the famous gardens belonging to the Rucellai, where from the early 16th century the members of the former Accademia Platonica met.

[VARCHI, Benedetto (1503 - 1565).] Manuscript treatise, a copy in a 16th-century hand, comprising six parts including: a letter from Benedetto Varchi to Luca Martini, Padua, 31 December 1539, referring to Martini's request for an explanation of the new game sent to Varchi by Cosimo Rucellai, the game of Pythagoras; Varchi's 'Trattato delle Proportioni et Proportionalità'; 'Dialogo sopra la particolare dichiaratione del gioco di Pitagora. Interlocutori: Carlo Strozzi, Cosimo Rucellai et Iacopo Vettori'; 'Rithmimachia Pytagorae in 19 regole'; 'Cautiones apprime observande nel gioco di Pytagorae'; 'Sette regale per risolvere le proporzioni geometriche e regole per la prova del risultato, in volgare'; also including arithmetical calculations, and six diagrams and drawings (one loosely inserted) of chequered boards for playing Pythagoras's game; the manuscript written in brown ink, paragraph headings in red with blue initial letters, red initial letters in first words of paragraphs, 101 pages, 220 x 165 mm, the first 15 leaves numbered by the copyist; ownership inscription of Marco Antonio; annotated on 3rd leaf before text 'Marchiono de Marchioni scrisse questo libro'; a few lines of writing (experiments in penmanship) on 4 pages following end of text; (occasional offsetting of ink; a few words and squares in 2 diagrams lost from erosion of ink; 2 diagrams repaired with tape on verso; a few ink blots and smudges); disbound, vellum wrapper (including Petrarch's Canzoniere CXXI inscribed on upper side and other inscriptions in different hands, probably written to practise penmanship; the wrapper made from a leaf taken from a 14th-century register of the Commune of Florence). Modern green morocco box. Benedetto Varchi, humanist and theorist, was among the most active members of the Florentine Academy. He exchanged sonnets with Angelo Bronzino and Bartolomeo Ammanati and assisted Benvenuto Cellini to revise the manuscript of his Vita. His views on Michelangelo, falling between traditional Aristotelianism and empirical admiration for him, were influential in subsequent paragone discussions of the relative merits of painting and sculpture. Varchi explains (in the Dialogue) that the game of Pythagoras, which is described in the second half of the manuscript (f.26v - f.51r), was discovered in Paris in the studio of Jacopo Fabro (the Aristotelian polymath, Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples, 1455-1537), and sent to Palla Rucellai, father of Cosimo (f.27v). Varchi associated Pythagoras's name with it (f.28v) and his own treatise on proportion is relevant to the complexities of the Rithmimachia, or battle of numbers. Such games, devised as much for intellectual exercise as for recreation, were fashionable pastimes in the Cinquecento, enabling the players to display their erudition. The introductory dialogue between Cosimo Rucellai, Carlo Strozzi and Iacopo Vettori takes place in the Orti Orticellari, the famous gardens belonging to the Rucellai, where from the early 16th century the members of the former Accademia Platonica met.

Details

[VARCHI, Benedetto (1503 - 1565).] Manuscript treatise, a copy in a 16th-century hand, comprising six parts including: a letter from Benedetto Varchi to Luca Martini, Padua, 31 December 1539, referring to Martini's request for an explanation of the new game sent to Varchi by Cosimo Rucellai, the game of Pythagoras; Varchi's 'Trattato delle Proportioni et Proportionalità'; 'Dialogo sopra la particolare dichiaratione del gioco di Pitagora. Interlocutori: Carlo Strozzi, Cosimo Rucellai et Iacopo Vettori'; 'Rithmimachia Pytagorae in 19 regole'; 'Cautiones apprime observande nel gioco di Pytagorae'; 'Sette regale per risolvere le proporzioni geometriche e regole per la prova del risultato, in volgare'; also including arithmetical calculations, and six diagrams and drawings (one loosely inserted) of chequered boards for playing Pythagoras's game; the manuscript written in brown ink, paragraph headings in red with blue initial letters, red initial letters in first words of paragraphs, 101 pages, 220 x 165 mm, the first 15 leaves numbered by the copyist; ownership inscription of Marco Antonio; annotated on 3rd leaf before text 'Marchiono de Marchioni scrisse questo libro'; a few lines of writing (experiments in penmanship) on 4 pages following end of text; (occasional offsetting of ink; a few words and squares in 2 diagrams lost from erosion of ink; 2 diagrams repaired with tape on verso; a few ink blots and smudges); disbound, vellum wrapper (including Petrarch's Canzoniere CXXI inscribed on upper side and other inscriptions in different hands, probably written to practise penmanship; the wrapper made from a leaf taken from a 14th-century register of the Commune of Florence). Modern green morocco box.

Benedetto Varchi, humanist and theorist, was among the most active members of the Florentine Academy. He exchanged sonnets with Angelo Bronzino and Bartolomeo Ammanati and assisted Benvenuto Cellini to revise the manuscript of his Vita. His views on Michelangelo, falling between traditional Aristotelianism and empirical admiration for him, were influential in subsequent paragone discussions of the relative merits of painting and sculpture.

Varchi explains (in the Dialogue) that the game of Pythagoras, which is described in the second half of the manuscript (f.26v - f.51r), was discovered in Paris in the studio of Jacopo Fabro (the Aristotelian polymath, Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples, 1455-1537), and sent to Palla Rucellai, father of Cosimo (f.27v). Varchi associated Pythagoras's name with it (f.28v) and his own treatise on proportion is relevant to the complexities of the Rithmimachia, or battle of numbers. Such games, devised as much for intellectual exercise as for recreation, were fashionable pastimes in the Cinquecento, enabling the players to display their erudition.

The introductory dialogue between Cosimo Rucellai, Carlo Strozzi and Iacopo Vettori takes place in the Orti Orticellari, the famous gardens belonging to the Rucellai, where from the early 16th century the members of the former Accademia Platonica met.

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