AGOSTINI ANTONIO. Dialoghi... sopra le medaglie, inscrizzioni, ed altre antichità tradotti dalla Lingua Spagnuola nell'Italiana da Dionigi Ottaviano Sada e dal medesimo accresciuti con diverse Annotazioni Istoriche, e nuovamente illustrati con molte medaglie...In Roma, per Girolamo Mainardi, 1736 cm. 35, pp. (24) xxx (2) 318 (6). Frontispiece in red and black with central vignette engraved in copper. With hundreds of wood engravings in the text. On the front of the last card, engraving of "Measure of the Ancient Medals Carved in Gold, Silver & Copper, & more, found by Dionysius Ottaviano Sada". Recent amateurs binding in half leather with spikes, nerve back with gold titles and threads. Within custody. Marginal and well preserved specimen. The work is preceded by a Latin ode by Giuseppe Castiglione and a short life by Agostini taken from the funeral oration in his honor by the Jesuit Andrea Scotti. Valuable eighteenth-century edition of this numismatic and archaeological treatment in dialogical form, in the classic version of the Sada, also remarkable for its illustrative richness (in addition to the medals, arches, monuments, Roman inscriptions are reproduced). The original edition is from 1587; the original of the Sada version of 1650, with the addition of a twelfth dialogue, composed by the Jesuit Andrea Scotti. Agostini (Zaragoza, 1517-1586), bishop of Tarragona, long residing in Italy, was a jurist, latinist and scholar of antiquity capable of interdisciplinarily combining the most varied branches of knowledge, as well as in this work pioneer of the studies of medals. Doctor of law and author of fundamental Roman and canon law studies, he was the auditor of Rota in Rome on the proposal of Charles V, papal ambassador to England, sent to Vienna to negotiate peace between Philip II of Spain and Ferdinand I of Austria. Bishop of Alife, Lerida and Tarragona, he took part in the Tridentine Council, carrying out diplomatic assignments which earned him diplomatic renown no less than for his scholarly activity. See Cicognara, 2728; Brunet, I, 568; Scandalized Ciciani, "La Letteratura Numismatica", n. 41; Graesse, I, 253.