Annotations of Pierfrancesco di Piero Bardi (d. 1534), and his dedication to Henry VIII

 

An inscription reading "Sere[nissi]mo Regi Anglie et cet[erorum] Henrico VIII" from the bottom of one of the Library's copies of Peter Paul Porrus's polyglot Psalter (1517). This dedication to Henry was written by Pierfrancesco di Piero Bardi, a scholar who belonged to a powerful Florentine merchant family resident in London. The book contains numerous marginal notes by Bardi. Together these make up a cryptic political message to the King, inspired by an angelic vision Bardi had had some years before (described in another set of his marginalia in a copy of Mirabilis liber), urging the King to oppose the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and to save Florence from their influence. Although the book probably reached Henry, there is no mark of royal ownership upon it, and Bardi's message fell on deaf ears.

Donated by John Carey, Earl of Dover.