Irving’s Machiavelli
The Works of Nicolas Machiavel, Secretary of State to the Republic of Florence. Translated … by Ellis Farnesworth.
London: Printed for T. Davies, 1775.
Price: $10,000.00
About the item
Folding portrait in vol. I. 4 vols. 8vo. Irving’s Machiavelli. Early twentieth century half brown morocco, t.e.g. Provenance: Washington Irving; Pierre P. Irving; George D. Smith, Bookseller item 89 ($250.00).
Item #305484
Inscribed on the title-page of volume I, “P.P. Irving from his Uncle Washington”; and again on the title page of vol. III, “P.P. Irving from his Uncle Wash.”, and signed “W Irving” on the verso of the half-title.
Irving had a long-standing interest in Italian culture, and first began to study Italian in 1804-5; he began to read Dante in Italian in 1823. Since his formal education was scant, Irving embarked on a perpetual course of self education during his years in in England and Europe. On Christmas Eve, 1825, Irving recorded in his Journals that he copied out maxims from Machiavelli, and read Dante, Milton, and Gibbon.
Irving had more than thirty nieces and nephews, among them Pierre Munro Irving, his uncle’s amanuensis and collaborator in later years; and Pierre Paris Irving (1806-1878), son of Ebenezer, who worked for a time as a merchant and took holy orders in 1826. He served as secretary of the Foreign Committee of the Board of Missions.
This copy of the collected works was given to Pierre Paris Irving by his uncle, and was later in the inventory of the great New York bookseller George D. Smith, whom Charles Heartman called “the greatest bookseller the world has ever known”
A choice association from the library of the great American author.
