In 4°(mm 200x140); (8), 91, (5). Red and blue cuts. Full rear antique vellum with manuscript title on the spine. Beautiful allegorical vignette in silography on the title page and some capilettera within large historiated vignettes. Very good specimen, slight slight halo to some papers. Very rare. First edition of this curious work in which, in the form of a dialogue between Flaminio Borgheto, Cristoforo Ferrari and Giangiacobo Tognale, the author expresses his ideas on the virtues of the hero. Referring to tradition and authors (Plato, St. Augustine, Aristotle, Galen and Matthew the Evangelist), he differentiates heroic virtue from cruelty (woundedness) and defines it as 'a most noble habit, splendour, & excellence of moral virtues, belonging to the appetite of the senses, born of a sublime desire for honour, which above the human condition raises man'. Francesco India was a famous 16th century Veronese physician and philosopher. Not in Adams; Carpanè-Menato, p. 407, no. 423.