Description
ORLANDO FURIOSO DI MESSER LUDOVICO ARIOSTO CON LA GIUNTA, NOVISSIMAMENTE STAMPATO E CORRETTO. Con una Apologia di M. Lodovico Dolcio contra ai detrattori dell’Autore, o un modo breviffimo di trovar le coſe aggiunte; e Tavola di tutto quello ch’è contenuto nel Libro. Aggiuntovi una breve espositione dei luoghi difficili.
[Venezia] : appresso Mapheo Pasini, 1540 (Impresso in Vinegia : appresso di Mapheo Pasini, & Francesco di Alessandro Bindoni compagni, 1540)
In-8vo, cc. 185 (out of 244, [12]). Copy lacking 60 leaves. Soft coeval vellum, soiled, defects. Old handwritten notes on the endpapers and to some leaves. Mention of Prince of Vallaraghi (?), some loose papers and some stains.
Comments:
Rare reprint of the Orlando Furioso edition published in 1535 by Maffeo Pasini and Alessandro Bindoni, one of the largest publishing houses in Venice during the first half of the 16th century. Specialized in epic chivalric literature they produced, between 1525 and 1542, eight editions of the Furioso, already enjoying immense fortune. The most important of these editions, occupying a prominent place in the editorial history of the Furioso in the sixteenth century, was the Octavo which they published in 1535 and then in 1540, the first edition in which the text of the poem was printed with a series of paratexts. Lodovico Dolce, the editor, publishes two dedicatory letters, an “Apologia” in which he defends Ariosto from detractors, and three other paratexts intended to assist readers: a glossary in which he explains some difficult words found in the Furioso; a list of the additions that Ariosto made in the final version of the poem; and a table of characters listing their appearance in major episodes. This was the first time that the Furioso was given an explanatory apparatus, and marked the beginning of a very imitated editorial practice; during the sixteenth century this practice would finally see the text submerged by notes on the margins, by a commentary that precedes and follows each chapter, and a large critical material before and after the text. No copies up for auction in the last 50 years.
