Delle nozze,: trattato del Fausto da Longiano, in cui si leggono i riti, i costumi, gl'instituti, le cerimonie, et le solennità di diversi antichi popoli, onde si sono tratti molti problemi; & aggiuntivi, i precetti matrimoniali di Plutarco

Venice: Plinio Pietrasanta, 1554. First edition. Very Good. Quarto (22 cm); 45, [3] pages (last leaf blank). Title within woodcut architectural border. Historiated woodcut initials throughout. In half vellum over 17th- or 18th-century woodblock printed paste paper, titled in manuscript on spine. Lower board ruptured near corner, subsequently rebuilt. Some leaves toned brown. Early ownership inscriptions and later bibliographical notes on front free endpaper and on rear pastedown. References: Adams F-182; Olschki, Choix de livres anciens, VI, 5817

This essay extolling marriage is an early artifact of modern ethnography, in that it poses as a survey of marriage customs through history and around the world. In true humanist fashion, Fausto mines the ancient historians for most of his material. So we find out that in Lacedaemonia (or, Atlantis), men who refused to marry were forced to run naked through the forum in the dead of winter, and that in Assyria, husbands were bound by law to obey their wives. The text concludes with a long series of Q&A ("quesiti") concerning marriage ceremonies, in which we find out why the Boetians crowned brides with asparagus, why Persian couples wait until spring to "consummate" any marriage, and why it is customary to grease the newlyweds' doorway with pig fat or wolf fat. The book is also notable for its lovely, large woodcut initials, including a letter T showing a satyr and a man at table together, a P with a bare-breasted woman driving a triumphal chariot, and an N with a lion-headed man astride a swimming horse.