GRATIANI, Antonio Maria. Edited by Dominique Fléchier. De Casibus Virorum Illustrium.

Lutetiae Parisiorum [Paris]: Apud Antonium Cellier, via Citharea, 1680. Folio. Title with large woodcut bouquet device; splendid engraved armorial head-piece to the dedication to Ferdinand of Fürstenberg, Prince-Bishop of Paderborn and Münster; “Extrait du Privilege du Roy” dated November 1679; final leaf of Errata. Contemporary mottled calf, recently rebacked in dark calf, raised bands, red morocco label “Flecherii De Casibus Virorum”; boards rubbed and with expected wear, old worming to lower board. A sound, wide-margined copy.
The text is an important late-Renaissance collection of moral-political exempla compiled by Antonio Maria Graziani (1537-1611), papal diplomat, bishop of Amelia and later cardinal. Borrowing its famous title from Boccaccio, Graziani’s work ranges from classical history to the tumults of the sixteenth century, recounting the “falls” of princes, captains and statesmen as lessons in fortune and virtue. This Paris edition is the first printing from Graziani’s autograph papers, prepared “opera ac studio” of Dominique Fléchier (1632-1710), then abbot of Saint-Séverin and later the celebrated bishop of Nîmes. It is one of Fléchier’s earliest editorial labours and displays the historical erudition and rhetorical gifts that informed his celebrated funeral orations. The royal privilège (November 1679) records Antoine Cellier’s right to print and sell the book; the dedication plate with Fürstenberg’s arms underlines the work’s courtly and ecclesiastical readership.
Copies with Irish provenance are uncommon. Archbishop Goodwin’s engraved bookplate locates the volume in an early eighteenth-century Church of Ireland library; its later presence in the Roden library at Tollymore links it to one of Ulster’s great aristocratic collections. A handsome folio of Continental scholarship with distinguished Irish associations.
Provenance: fine engraved armorial bookplate of Dr Timothy Goodwin, Lord Archbishop of Cashel (d.1729), to verso of title; later armorial bookplate of the Earl of Roden, K.P. (Tollymore Park), with old press-label and shelf-mark; early signature “J. Kilmore” (Timothy Goodwin).
Timothy Goodwin, Godwin or Godwyn (1670?-1729) English churchman and archbishop of Cashel, was born at Norwich, probably about 1670. He entered St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford, where he graduated M.A. on 22 January 1697. He was domestic chaplain to Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, who took him abroad and gave him the rectory of Heythorpe, Oxfordshire. Timothy accompanied Shrewsbury to Ireland in October 1713, on his appointment as Lord High Steward of Ireland. In 1714, he was made bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh. He rebuilt the episcopal residence at Kilmore, and made other improvements, two-thirds of his outlay being reimbursed by his successor, Josiah Hort, who also had begun life as a non-conformist. On 3 June 1727 Goodwin was translated to the archbishopric of Cashel, in succession to William Nicholson. He died in Dublin on 13 December 1729. He published two separate sermons in 1716, and a third in 1724. He married Anne Anderson, daughter and co-heiress of Charles Anderson of Worcester. Her sister Charlotte married Robert Jocelyn, 1st Viscount Jocelyn, hence the Roden bookplate.

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