Missae episcopales pro sacris ordinibus conferendis: secundum ritu[m] sacrosancte Romane Ecclesie ....

Venice: Giunta (colophon: in officina haeredum Lucaeantonii Iunctae), 1563. Leather. Very Good. Folio (38 cm); [2], 152, 12 leaves. Text in two columns, printed in red and black ink. Printer's device in red on title page (Camerini, I, 143, third variant). About 99 woodcut illustrations in text (some repeated), including full-page crucifixion, repeated seven times, and 10-panel historiated woodcut border to facing page, also repeated seven times. Rotunda, roman, and italic type. Music with notes in black on red staves. Bound in paneled calf, roughly contemporary, ruled in gilt with gilt fleurs-de-lis at corners. Binding worn with signs of old repairs. Text toned on some leaves, but remarkably fresh and free of blemishes overall. References: Mortimer, Italian, 304; Amiet, Repertorium, 2:101; Camerini, 673; RELICS, 2859.

In the 1560s, the brothers Tommaso and Giovan Maria Giunta were trying to recover financially from the fire that destroyed their Venice workshop in 1557. Taking few chances, they relied through the decade primarily on psalters, graduals, missals, breviaries, and antiphonaries. Designing these religious texts, the brothers expanded on the model of the missal their father, Lucantonio Giunta, published in 1501. Like the earlier missal, the mass for the ordination of bishops offered here channels the look of a medieval manuscript, with its double-column text printed in a rounded variation on Gothic type, red-inked type in place of rubrication, historiated and foliated initials, floral patterns, and impressive woodcut illustrations. This medieval disguise, however, cannot hide certain Renaissance or Humanist elements that creep in, such as the graceful Roman type in the running heads throughout, and the sophisticated Venetian Renaissance woodcut renditions of the Annunciation, the Crucifixion, and the Deposition. A handsome and energetic volume.