In Christi nomine. Amen. Anno nativitatis eiusdem 1568... [Testament of Matteo Amorini]

by Matteo Amorini (and probably his lawyer)

Bologna: Clemente Ferroni, 1628

30, [2] p. | Folio | A^16 | 320 x 228 mm

As best we can tell, the first and only edition of the Bologna banker’s last will and testament. He died in 1573, making the occasion of its publication in 1628 something of a mystery to us. We confess we’re not terribly motivated to read 30 pages of legalese, but it’s worth noting that traces of personality do come through. Among the will’s opening statement, for example, we learn that Amorini is “healthy, by the grace of God, in mind, sense, and intellect, though somewhat afflicted with gout, and weak in body, considering that death is imminent at all hours” (sanus…mortem esse impendentem). We picture an old man limping around the house in his robe, telling all who will listen—and those who won’t—that he probably won’t make it to his next birthday. “It won’t be long now,” he assures them. He looks out the window and fixes his stare on a distant tree, watching its brown leaves flutter to the ground against a gray sky. “I’m drawing up my will today,” he says with a sigh. He exits the room slowly. Then, waving his cane high above his head: “I won’t have your ne’er-do-well uncles fighting over every coin,” he yells, muttering something about vultures and an aversion to work. His children roll their eyes. “For pity’s sake, Dad, stop complaining and just lay off the steak. You’re gonna be fine.” Those more interested in his financial affairs might turn to p. 20-21, which list his credits at more than a dozen banks. ¶ Amorini’s appearance in the historical record is probably best attributed to the limited financial services he lent the Council of Trent during its lackluster sessions held in Bologna. In his day, a robust banking operation could mean a quick climb up the social ladder, something a number of Amorini’s Bologna banking colleagues took advantage of. This was not the case for Amorini, “whose decision to deny a personal loan to the future Pope proved disastrously shortsighted. In spite of the family’s standing and connections the Amorini lost their chance to enter the patriciate” (Carboni and Fornasari). ¶ We locate a single copy (Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome).

PROVENANCE: We’ve compared our pages 1, 8, 10, and 11 to the Casanatense copy, staff of which kindly shared some snapshots. While at a glance our copy might appear to be a proof, not a single one of our corrections appears in the Rome copy. Nonetheless, our text was marked up much like a proof might have been, thoroughly through p. 12 but afterward only with occasional underlining or nonverbal marks. There are numerous deletions and insertions, sometimes accompanied by standard proofreading symbols, though this reader did use some rather idiosyncratic symbols to denote insertions. Some corrections are quite innocuous, even pedantic, like repeatedly spelling out an ampersand as ac, or replacing printed praedictus for its synonym praefatus (p. 1). Most insertions are just a word or two; in a few cases, closer to a full line of text—like some additional boilerplate legal language penned in the margins of p. 1 and 11, which happens to appear elsewhere in the printed text (nomine jure via causa et forma quibus magis et melius validius et efficatius da jure potuit et potest). The very same addition has been crossed out beneath that on p. 1, with a note (ut supra) instructing us to defer to the text above. This appears to reflect not a change to the text itself, but to its location on the page—in this case, a few lines higher than first indicated. ¶ So if not a proof, an attempt to correct the text prior to publication, what is it? A tentative step toward the preparation of a new edition that never materialized? The date of the will is penned in the upper right corner, as if it served an organizational function among a group of documents. Perhaps someone was considering a published collection of such material? We can do little more than speculate, and we confess the annotations could just as well reflect the work of an obsessive reader. This would be an extreme case, but plenty of early books bear the corrections of zealous readers, even without printed errata to guide them.  ¶ Old ownership inscription on the final blank page, possibly that of an Amorini.

CONDITION: Without a binding but securely sewn through the fold, retaining deckle edges. Last leaf is blank. ¶ The first bifolium split nearly halfway up the fold; edges tattered and torn, never affecting the text; scattered light dampstaining and soiling.

REFERENCES: USTC 4004849 ¶ Nicholas Terpstra, Cultures of Charity: Women, Politics, and the Reform of Poor Relief in Renaissance Italy (Harvard Univ, 2013), endnote 90 (“Matteo Amorini’s will was made out in November 1568, he died in November 1573, and his sons paid the legacy in 1574”); La depositeria del Concilio di Trento (Univ of Virginia, 1970), p. 27, 81, 121; Mauro Carboni and Massimo Fornasari, “Learning from others’ failures: the rise of the Monte di pietà in early modern Bologna,” The History of Bankruptcy (Routledge, 2013), p. 111

Item #631