8vo. (210 x 130 mm). Two parts in two volumes. Finely bound in later full panelled calf gilt, gilt-decorated turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges yellow; 207, [1] pp., engraved portrait frontispiece of Leonardo and engraved title vignette, both by Giovanni Boggi; 256, [2] (errata to the recto) pp., 60 finely engraved plates by Boggi, of which 3 are folding; a near fine copy in an exceptionally handsome binding.

Provenance: Emilie Ashurst Venturi (1820?-1893), with her early, ink signature, ‘Emilie Ashurst August 30th 1842’ to the recto of the first page of the preface.

Emilie Ashurst was a disciple and biographer of the Italian politician, journalist, activist, and vocal advocate for women’s rights, Giuseppe Mazzini. Together with Garibaldi he was instrumental in bringing about the unification of Italy. Mazzini was to have a profound influence on European political and social thought in the latter half of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries: an influence aided in no small part by Emilie Ashurst who translated a number of Mazzini’s key works into English and wrote a memoir of him, published in 1875.

Stock number: 1236