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The Time Traveller Collection
724
1553 Petrarch, Francesco. Poems, a diplomatic gift from the British Embassy in Venice.
Il Petrarcha con La Spositione di M. Giovanni Andrea Gesualdo / I Trionfi del Petrarcha con la
Spositione di M. Giovanni Andrea Gesualdo da Traetto. Venetia, Domenico Giglio, 1553. 8vo. 2 parti
in 1 vol. (22), 346, (72) pp. with two woodcut title pages and 6 woodcuts within the “Trionfi”, all by
Fratelli Nicolini da Sabio. Rebound crimson morocco. The flyleaf with signed letter of dedication
from by Sir Albertus Morton, secretary to (and nephew of ) Sir Henry Wotton, British ambassador to
Venice.
The signed inscription: ‘Eccellentissimo Signore mio, Padrone Collendissimo Vivendo in me sempre
il medesimo ardore di farmi conoscere per servitore dell’Eccellenza vostra, non perciò ho avuto
animo in questo concorso di doni che le vengon fatti, di presentarmile inanzi. Ma hora non posso
più ritenere tal mio disiderio che non le metta in cospetto questi due forestieri, sapendo quanto
l’Eccellenza vostra sia fautrice di vertuosi et di pellegrini, et maggiormente sarà di questi, per venir
essi banditi dalla patria loro. La nobiltà, dunque, dell’animo suo degnerà di dar loro ricetto tra tanti
altri scrittori gravi che appresso di lei si truovano, et mi renderà certo che non le sarà mai discara la
mia servitù inutile, sì, ma reale et fedele. Dell’Ecellenza vostra Divotissimo servitore, 4.1.2. Alberto
Mortoni’.
The gist of this is that Morton can no longer restrain his desire to present two strangers,
presumably foreigners to his patron, knowing that he is the protector of the virtuous, of pilgrims
and of writers, and that he will take particular care of them, since they have been exiled from their
homeland. These two English emigres presumably came to the notice of Wotton and Morton
during their posting to Venice between 1604 and 1609. The friendship between the two men is
described by Izaak Walton as he quotes from a letter in his ‘Life of Sir Henry Wotton’ in which the
older man recalls his nephew as ‘dearer to me than mine own being’, and of course subsequently
penned his elegy ‘Tears mourned at the grave of Sir Albertus Morton’. Wotton’s career, as evidenced
in this diplomatic gift, was spent implementing James I’s ambition for wider European influence
but later overshadowed by his aphorism that an ‘Ambassador is an honest gentleman sent abroad
to lie for the good of his country.’
Estimate €500-€700 (approx £425-£595)
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