„De origine et amplitudine civitatis Veronæ“ was written around the year 1540 by the handsome guy in the picture above, Torello Sarayna. The first thing I noticed when I finally had the book in front of me at the Oechslin Library was that its cover was rather strange: It featured a medieval drawing of a sick person in bed and lots of text in old German. As „De origine et amplitudine civitatis Veronæ“ was written in latin, the cover doesn‘t really fit the text. It must have been added by some previous owner of the book.
The book, as its name suggests, covers the history of the north Italian city of Verona. It is divided in multiple chapters, called books, with the following titles:
– de origine civitatis
– de amplitudine civitatis
– de viris illustribus antiquis Veronensibus
– de his qui potiti fuerunt dominio civitatis Veronae
– de monumentis antiquis urbis et agri Veronensis
– de interpretatione litterarum antiquarum
These titles mean roughly the following in english:
– about the origins of the city
– about the greatness of the city
– about the famous Veronese men of antiquity
– about those who managed to rule the city of Verona
– about the antique monuments of the city of Verona and the surrounding countryside
– about the interpretation of the antique literature
The book is 225mm wide, 315mm high and 20mm thick. Therefore it would be categorized as a folio. It has 74 pages which feature 35 illustrations.
