De serpente æneo Ambrosianæ Basilicæ Mediolani micrologus Auctore Petro Paulo Bosca Ex Sodalitio Sacerdotum Oblatorum S. Th. D. & Bibliothecæ Ambrosianæ Præfecto. Ad illustriss. et excellentiss. D. D. Antonium Borromæum, Comitem Aronæ [...]

Full title: De serpente æneo Ambrosianæ Basilicæ Mediolani micrologus Auctore Petro Paulo Bosca Ex Sodalitio Sacerdotum Oblatorum S. Th. D. & Bibliothecæ Ambrosianæ Præfecto. Ad illustriss. et excellentiss. D. D. Antonium Borromæum, Comitem Aronæ, Marchionem Angleriæ, Ducem Ceræ &c.

8vo. ff. [8], [1] (folding etching [45.8 x 10.5 cm]), pp. 114, ff. [6]. Bound in contemporary vellum, title in ink on spine. Woodcut arms on title page, woodcut inhabited initials, woodcut tailpieces (of a demon, dragons, and intertwined snakes). Etching trimmed on platemark at left.

Rare first and only edition of this 17th-century treatise on the mysterious bronze sculpture of a serpent displayed at the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, an object long thought to be the original Brazen Serpent forged and erected by Moses to protect the Israelites from venomous bites and which centuries later was shattered by King Hezekiah in his reforms against idolatry. Written by Pietro Paolo Bosca (1632-99), director of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the present work is notable for its large folding etching depicting the serpent atop its column, the first published image of this artwork/relic. The bronze serpent, elegantly coiled and ready to strike, shows clear evidence of having been broken into four pieces and rejoined, a fact that Bosca explicitly notes on the etching. Bosca writes against those who consider the serpent’s identification with Moses to be a superstition, an antiquarian misunderstanding, or part of a fraud or a forgery. He investigates biblical and patristic sources and provides a thorough examination of relevant manuscript, printed, epigraphic, numismatic, and sigillographic material, both popular and learned (he includes an alphabetized list of nearly one hundred sources, noting which items are in manuscript and which in the vernacular). Bosca discusses the theory that the serpent came from a temple to Asclepius upon which the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio was built (Asclepius carried a snake-entwined staff) and considers as possible sources the sea serpents who attacked Laocoön and his sons, Medusa’s tresses, the serpent who guarded the Garden of the Hesperides, etc. Important is his discovery of an archival source revealing that the bronze serpent was sent to Milan from Constantinople by Emperor Basil II in 1007, a fact still accepted today. Later scholars would spot the Milan serpent clearly depicted in the scene of the Coronation of Gian Galeazzo Visconti in a late fourteenth-century illuminated missal (S. Ambrogio, Biblioteca; see M. di Giovanni, “Il serpente di bronzo della basilica di S. Ambrogio,” in Arte lombarda, vol. XI (1966), p. 5). Today few believe the sculpture to be Mosaic in origin, but there is no consensus about when and where it was made (H.L. Kessler, “Christ the Magic Dragon,” in: Gesta , 48 (2009), 2, p. 132, n30). Present here is the often missing 1-leaf sonetto by Camillo Sitoni written in praise of the book (added as a cancel, with the imprint “In Milano, per Francesco Vigone”).

See L. Cicognara, Catalogo ragionato dei libri d'arte e d'antichità posseduti dal conte Cicognara. Pisa, 1821, 3186; Catalogue of Seventeenth-Century Italian Books in the British Library, 1, p. 136; C. Bertelli, “Un altro serpente in S. Ambrogio,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 1987, 41, pp. 85-87; B. Fricke. Ecce Fides: Die Statue von Conques, Götzendienst und Bildkultur im Westen, Munchen, 2007, pp. 143-44; A. Petrucci, “Pietro Paolo Bosca,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 13 (1971), pp. 165-6; Il giornale de letterati. Per tutto l’Anno 1675. Rome, 1675 [anonymous book review], pp. 129-31.

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