ARIOSTO, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso di M. Ludovico Ariosto novissimamente alla sua integrità ridotto et di varie figure ornato.
In Venetia, per Nicolo di Bascarini., 1543.Quarto (200 x 140 mm.), 246 leaves, woodcut portrait of Ariosto after Titian on title page, peacock printer’s device on last leaf and 46 small woodcut illustrations at the beginning of each canto. Eighteenth century calf, spine in compartments with red morocco lettering piece. Provenance: “Ex libris Federici Sacci Cremonensis” (manuscript note), Richard Heber (according to the description of Giuseppe Martini pasted on front pastedown) an old sale catalogue description pasted on first flyleaf, Livio Ambrogio (ex libris). Title page a little dust soiled, a small paper flaw on pages 185-186 affecting a couple of letters, binding worn but a very good copy.
A very rare copy of one of the first illustrated editions ever printed of Ariosto’s masterpiece. Very little is known about Nicolò Bascarini, a typographer active in Venice from 1541 to 1554. This edition reproduces the whole set of illustrations realized for the edition by Niccolò Zoppino in 1536, that is, the first illustrated edition of Ariosto’s Furioso. Nevertheless, if compared to the original, Bascarini’s illustrations are bigger and better defined. Each illustration corresponds in size to one ottava rima, that is the eight-line stanza organizing the whole poem, and reproduces a single episode; the characters clearly prevail on the landscape, which is only superficially sketched. The Orlando Furioso was the most popular Italian epic poem of the sixteenth century, and is generally regarded as the finest expression of the literary tendencies and spiritual attitudes of the Italian Renaissance. There is no doubt that the success enjoyed by the work from the 1520s was also due to the fact that illustrations began to be produced for the poem almost immediately: publishers competed with each other in producing new editions (almost 200 in less than a century), offering different features to attract more customers. It proved very difficult for draftsmen to translate into images the extraordinary complexity of the Ariostean invention, as well as to assure an adequate iconographic counterpart to a plot continuously and marvellously overlapping characters and episodes.
F. Zanetti, Nota per una storia delle illustrazioni dell’Orlando Furioso, in Ludovico Ariosto. Documenti, immagini, fortuna critica, 1992, 129-137; I. Andreoli, L’Orlando furioso ‘tutto ricorretto et di nuove figure adornato’, in Autour du livre italien ancien en Normandie, 2011, 41-132; L’Orlando Furioso e la sua traduzione in immagini.
Other Books

CONTILE, Luca
Ragionamento di Luca Contile sopra la proprietà delle imprese con le particolari de gli Academici Affidati et con le interpretationi et croniche.
€ 8.000
OLINA, Giovanni Pietro
Vccelliera ouero discorso della natura, e proprieta di diuersi vccelli, e in particolare di que' che cantano. Con il modo di prendergli, conoscergli,...
€ 6.000
GEORGEVIC, Bartolomej
De afflictione, tam captivorum quam etiam sub Turcae tributo viventium christianorum.
SOLD OUT![MORE, Sir Thomas. De optimo reip. statu deque nova insula Utopia ... Epigrammata [with:]DESIDERIUS ERASMUS. Epigrammata. MORE, Sir Thomas. De optimo reip. statu deque nova insula Utopia ... Epigrammata [with:]DESIDERIUS ERASMUS. Epigrammata.](https://www.medariquier.com/typo3temp/pics/9344bb41f5.jpg)
MORE, Sir Thomas; DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
MORE, Sir Thomas. De optimo reip. statu deque nova insula Utopia ... Epigrammata [with:] DESIDERIUS ERASMUS. Epigrammata.
€ 50.000
SCARAMUCCIA, Luigi
Le finezze de pennelli italiani, ammirate, e studiate da Girupeno sotto la scorta, e disciplina del genio di Raffaello d'Urbino : con una curiosa,...
€ 1.200
RUINETTI, Tomaso
Idea del buon scrittore, opera prima di Tomaso Ruinetti da Ravena a’beneficio de’desiderosi d’imitare le vere forme dello scrivere.
€ 8.000
LUCRETIUS, Titus Carus
Della natura delle cose libri sei, tradotti dal Latino in Italiano da Alessandro Marchetti. Dati nuovamente in luce da Francesco Gerbault.
€ 7.000
VALVASONE, Erasmo da
Della caccia poema del signor Erasmo di Valuasone. All'ill. signor Cesare di Valuasone suo nepote. Con gli argomenti a ciascun canto del sig. Gio....
€ 3.500
TAEGIO, Francesco
Frencisci Taegii phisici et equitis Candida et vera narratio dirae ac cronicae Papiae obsidionis.
€ 30.000
DELAMBRE, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph & MÉCHAIN, Pierre-François-André
Base du système métrique décimal, ou mesure de l'arc du méridien compris entre les parallèles de Dunkerque et Barcelone, exécutée en 1792 et années...
SOLD OUT
BOCCHI, Achille
Symbolicarum quaestionum, de universo genere quas serio ludebat, libri quinque.
SOLD OUTMEDA RIQUIER rare books ltd.
4 Bury Street St James's
SW1Y 6AB London
Phone +44 (0) 7770457377
info@medariquier.com