The earliest and most magnificent description of the Netherlands in the coloured specimen of the collection Schäfer Guicciardini, Lodovico. Descriptione [...] di tutti i Paesi Bassi, altrimenti detti Germania Inferiore. Con più carte di Geographia del paese, & col ritratto naturale di più terre principali. 10 pages, 296 pages, 10 pages. With 14 ochre yellow coloured arabesque title frames and numerous figural jewelry initials in woodcut, wide coloured woodcut title border and two further coloured woodblocks of the same edikula with coat of arms and portrait woodcuts, 4 double-leaf, border and surface coloured copper engraved maps and 10 double-sided city views or plans in wood engraving as well as 2 double-leaf (1 stung, 1 in woodcut) building views, all colored (and all in Pag.). 32.5 x 22 cm. ==References== In the early 19th century (capitals and joints brittle, partly open, more shabby and infested and rubbed) with gold-embossed title and some fillet gilding. Antwerp, Willem Silvius, 1567. Adams G 1540. STC 90. Graesse III, 178f. Brunet II, 806. Bagrow Skelton 492 and 497. Cockx-Indestege 360. Funck 325. Scheepvaart Museum 86. Parent 290. Schottenloher, bibliography III, 31576ab. Belgica Typogr. 1360. Voet 1277 Note – First edition of the famous description of the Netherlands by the Italian merchant, geographer, cartographer, politician, writer and important European humanist Lodovico Guicciardini (1521-1589), appeared in the same year as a following French edition. The magnificent, here varied coloured three repeated Ädikula borders show pretty allegories on a column architecture with manierist spree, they surround the typographic title with a nicely coloured vignette "Scrutmini" and on the following two sides with the coat of arms left and right a portrait medallion of Philip II of Spain. The large maps and the ten double-sided city views - sometimes as a vedute, sometimes from a bird's eye view, partly as a floor plan are from the Hague copper engraver and cartographer Cornelis de Hooghe (1541-1583). They show Amsterdam, Antwerp, "Bolduch" ('s-Hertogenbosch), Bruges, Brussels, Ghent, Löwen, Liège, "Malines" (Mechelen), Utrecht, Ypern etc. The double-leaf plate shows the town hall, the "Domus Senatoria Antverpien", the equally beautifully coloured large woodcut "La bella & magnifica Chiesa di nostra Donna, ritritta al naturale", the Antwerpers Liebfrauenkathedrale, a highlight of Brabant's Gothic style. – Title with etched and painted old ownership note below, slightly tanned, slightly sticky and brownish-spotted, here and there small darkened color breakthrough (vegetable green), somewhat tight bound, almost without remarkable paper lesions, overall a magnificently beautiful, broad-edge specimen in convincing very nuanced and meticulously applied old colour with fine partial protein lamination, which gives the city representations (especially the red colour of the roofs, coat of arms etc.) a lively shine. Provenance: illegible possession of a contemporary or little later hand, collection Schäfer, Schweinfurt (Auction Schäfe III, 1995, Lot 106).