Portrait of Giovanni Boccaccio
Date
1797
Sitter
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 1375, Italian) , Writer
Creator
William Hopwood (1784 - 1853, British) , Engraver
After
Cornelis van Dalen II (1638 - 1664, Dutch) , Printmaker
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 220mm
width (print): 135mm
width (print): 135mm
Subject
Description
Half-length study of Giovanni Boccaccio, after an original painting by Titian, looking to the left as viewed. The sitter wears a fur-lines robe and is shown holding a book in his left hand, the index finger marking a page.
Plate from a grangerized copy of A history of the Royal Society, with memoirs of the Presidents…by Charles Richard Weld (London, John W. Parker, 1848). In this edition, the original two volumes were extended to eight volumes with the addition of extra-illustrations and documents, by Alexander Meyrick Broadley.
The engraving appears facing p.2, as Weld’s text discusses the Italian scholar Barlaam of Calabria (c.1290-1348): ‘According to Petrarch and Boccaccio, he was a man far in advance of the age in which he lived’.
Inscribed below: ‘Engraved by W. Hopwood. BOCCACCIO. From a Print by Cornelis Van Dalen. Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.’
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) Italian writer and poet, author of The Decameron.
Plate from a grangerized copy of A history of the Royal Society, with memoirs of the Presidents…by Charles Richard Weld (London, John W. Parker, 1848). In this edition, the original two volumes were extended to eight volumes with the addition of extra-illustrations and documents, by Alexander Meyrick Broadley.
The engraving appears facing p.2, as Weld’s text discusses the Italian scholar Barlaam of Calabria (c.1290-1348): ‘According to Petrarch and Boccaccio, he was a man far in advance of the age in which he lived’.
Inscribed below: ‘Engraved by W. Hopwood. BOCCACCIO. From a Print by Cornelis Van Dalen. Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.’
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) Italian writer and poet, author of The Decameron.
Object history
Print from Charles Richard Weld's A history of the Royal Society, vol. 1... (London, John W. Parker, 1848) grangerized by the writer and collector Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847–1916) into 8 volumes, adding illustrative material and manuscript items to Weld's text. The books were initially owned by Ludwig Mond FRS (1839–1909), and according to an inscription by his son Robert Ludwig Mond FRS (1867–1938) they were intended for presentation to the Society. This eventually happened in late 1959, the donor being the politician Harry Nathan (1889–1963), Lord Nathan of Churt.
Related fellows
Charles Richard Weld (1813 - 1869, British) , Author
Associated place