ICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, Giovanni (1463-1494). Le sette sposizioni ... intitolate Heptaplo. Translated from Latin into Italian by Antonio Buonagrazia. Pescia: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1555.

1555: Cabalistic symbolism, Speculative science,and Neoplatonic thought

PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, Giovanni (1463-1494). Le sette sposizioni ... intitolate Heptaplo. Translated from Latin into Italian by Antonio Buonagrazia. Pescia: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1555. Small 4to., 158 pp. Woodcut architectural title border incorporating the Medici arms, charming printer's emblem to verso of title with a book and a bug quoting Romans 14:3. BL/STC Italian Books, p.514. 18th century mottled calf, front board detached, wear to spine and glued relaid, altering lettering to spine, small perforated stamp to title page, a couple other small library markings, old library card holder to inner rear board,

"FIRST ITALIAN EDITION of the "Heptaplus," the principal philosophic work of Pico della Mirandola. His Hebrew studies had made him acquainted with the Kabbalah, the influence of which is very obvious in this work. This beautifully printed volume is remarkable as bearing the very explicit imprint "Pescia," a little Tuscan town near Lucca, although it is printed by Torrentino, the famous Florentine printer, not only with his usual fine types but even with his title-border found in several other of his books. " [Goldschmidt List No. 23, 1935)
The treatise presents the philosopher's cosmological conceptions and his application of cabalistic symbolism, speculative science,and neoplatonic thought to the Mosaic story of the creation. Included are discussions of man as microcosm, the corporeality of matter, the triple partition of the world,etc. The work was translated by Antonio Buona-grazia and edited by the Italian philosopher, Pompeo della Barba, d.1582.