Portrait engraved by Suor Isabella Piccini of Venice. No U.S. copies.

Suor Isabella Piccini / Giovanni Thiepolo. Vita del B. Giacomo Salomone Nobile Venetiano Religioso dell’Ordine di S. Domenico e Protettore della Città di Forlì Scritta da Monsignor Gio. Thiepolo Patriarca di Venetia, E Rinouata di Stampe dal N.H. Alvise Salomone Fu de Sier Battista. In Venetia: Per Domenico Louisa, 1691. 12mo [13.9 x 8.0 cm], [1] f. half-title, [1] f. engraved portrait, [5] ff., 144 pp., [5] ff., [1] f. integral blank, with woodcut initial and tail-piece. Bound in contemporary sprinkled calf, sprinkled edges. Old, crude rebacking with loss of headband and tailband, rubbing and edge wear to spine and boards. Contemporary ownership inscriptions n half-title and title.

Very rare (no U.S. copies) 1691 edition of the Vita of the ascetic-ecstatic Dominican friar Giacomo Salomone (1231-1314) of Forlì, an edition notable for its full-page portrait engraved by the Franciscan nun Suor Isabella Piccini (1644-1732) of Venice. I am not aware that the bibliography on Suor Isabella Piccini has yet recognized her hand in this title (she signed the plate here “S.r. Isabella P. f.”).

Elisabeta Piccini, the daughter of the engraver Giacomo Piccini (d. 1669), was engraving copperplates while still a teenager. She entered the Convent of Santa Croce in Venice in 1666 and took the name Suor Isabella. She remained there until her death at the age of 90. She is known to have contributed engravings to some 230 books (often several plates per book), and she also produced separately issued engravings.

Giacomo Salomone (or Salomoni) was renowned for his asceticism, mysticism and healing powers. His healing miracles are catalogued in this Vita, with special attention given to those performed for women, including his help with a dangerous childbirth, the bleeding of a certain Suor Ormandia, an ulcer, headaches, deafness, and a woman’s despair at the untimely death of a son, etc. (pp. 81-95).

The book begins and ends with poems dedicated to Giacomo and to the Salomone family (this edition was “renewed in print” though the efforts of a certain Alvise Salomone; the first edition of Salomone’s Vita  was printed in Venice by Pinelli in 1618). Appended to the work are official Latin documents of 1526, 1554, 1617 concerning Giocomo’s beatification and the approval of his cult in Venice.

OCLC, KVK and OPAC/SBN/ICCU locate no U.S. copies of the Vita del B. Giacomo Salomone, which is also rare in European census.

* IT\ICCU\CFIE\027059; A. F. Valcanover, “Contributi ad una storia del libro illustrato veneto: Suor Isabella Piccini,” Biblioteche Venete, vol. 4 (1985), pp. 29-48; S. Urbini, “Sul ruolo della donna ‘incisore’ nella storia del libro illustrato,” in G. Zarri, ed., Donna, disciplina, creanza cristiana dal XV al XVII secolo: Studi e testi a stampa, pp. 367-391; L. Di Vaio, “Suor Isabella Piccini,” Grafica d’arte, vol. 14, no. 53 (2003), pp. 8-13; N. Pavanello, “Prime prove incisorie di Isabella e Pietro Piccini per l’antiporta del libretto d‘opera,” in Il cielo, o qualcosa di più: Scritti per Adriano Mariuz, E. Saccomani, ed., pp. 346-352, 449-450; G. Gastaldello, “Una donna incisore tra le mura del convento di Santa Croce di Venezia,” in TECA, no. 3 (2013), pp. 97-122. F. Baccanelli, “L’arte incisoria di Isabella Piccini nei libri veneziani di fine Seicento,” in La “splendida” Venezia di Francesco Morosini (1619-1694), M. Casini, et al., eds., pp. 134-145.