BLONDUS, FLAVIUS. [Mantua?: Georgius de Augusta and Paulus de Butzbach for or with Petrus Adam de Michaelibus, ca. 1472 or 73]. Collation: [1-210 3-118 126 13-148 156 16-228 234] (1/1r author's dedication to Pope Pius II, 1/1v author's prologue, 1/2v text, books 1-10, 23/4v blank). 180 leaves. 41 lines. Type: 1:106(107)R. 6-, 7-, and 8-line spaces for initials. Illuminated initials (13) supplied by a contemporary Italian artist in gold with white-vine decoration on blue, red and green grounds, in the lower border of the opening page the illuminated arms of a slightly later owner (displayed eagle sable) on gold shield within flourished cartouche in blue, red and green. Median folio, late 18th-century English mottled calf, on sides the gilt-stamped arms of Charles Spencer 3rd Earl of Sunderland, spine gilt, very worn, upper cover detached; first leaf soiled, wormhole affecting text of fols. 1/8-3/7, a few minuscule marginal wormholes elsewhere, short marginal tear to 19/5, some light marginal dampstaining, stain to gutter margins of last 10 leaves. FIRST EDITION. In the present work Biondo described the government, laws, customs and religion of the Roman Republic. It was the first such comprehensive history of the period, and the profundity and breadth of its scholarship rival the earlier work. This very rare edition has been assigned to various printers. Proctor, and following him the Gesamtkatalog, attributed the edition to the anonymous Brescian press of the Printer for Pietro Valla. Victor Scholderer, however, argued convincingly for Mantua as the place of printing, pointing out that the work was intimately associated with that city. More recent bibliographers (cf. CIBN) maintain the Mantuan attribution, but assign the edition to the printers Georgius de Augusta and Paulus de Butzbach, either with or at the expense of Petrus Adam de Michaelibus. HCR 3244; BMC VII, 927 (IB 30607); CIBN B-499; GW 4424; IGI 1761; Proctor 6942; Goff B-703.