Beschreibung:

DOGE GIOVANNI MOCENIGO (1409-85). Commissione for Pietro Contarini and Andrea de Ca’ de Pesaro, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum, Venice, 1484 A fascinating illuminated 15th-century commissione in a contemporary binding dispatching, with a certain degree of urgency, the noblemen Pietro Contarini and Andrea Pesaro to the Venetian overseas territories (Stato da Mar) – including Candia (Crete) and Cyprus – to seek out and correct reported irregularities. 251 x 173mm. i + 4 + i leaves, complete, 29 lines, ruled space: 166 x 110mm, historiated initial ‘N’ within three-sided border with the Lion of St Mark and the coat of arms of the Contarini and Pesaro families, quartered (some marginal staining). Contemporary blind-tooled calf over wooden boards (a little scuffed, lacking fabric ties). Provenance : Giovanni Mocenigo (1409-1485), was Doge of Venice from 1478 to 1485 – Pietro Contarini (1452-1528) was a member of one of the twelve founding families of the Venetian Republic, a politician, a humanist and a poet. He seems to have often been cast in similar political roles to the one to which he is appointed in the present document, as a righter of wrongs in the Venetian Republic. Andrea Pesaro, or de Ca’ de Pesaro (‘Andreas de Chadepexaro’) was a member of the Pesaro family of Venice, who at the time of Andrea’s appointment lived at the Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei, now Fortuny.