CEI, Francesco. Sonecti capituli canzone sextine, stanze et strambocti composti per lo excellentissimo Francescho Cei.

Octavo (156×98mm). [62] leaves. Late nineteenth-century red morocco binding signed by Binda, covers with gilt arms of Marquis Girolamo d'Adda, gilt edges, spine in compartments lettered in gilt. Some light marginal dampstaining, a fine copy overall.

The rare first edition of Francesco Cei's love poems. Little is known about the author: Cei was born in Florence in 1471 but died in Rome, unmarried and with no children. Much of what we know about him, his private life and later years comes from his canzoniere, which was first printed in 1503 and subsequently reissued in Florence in 1514, 1519, and 1530. It collects all of Cei's poems: ninety-seven sonnets, eight capitoli, nine songs, twenty stanze and seventeen strambotti. "The woman he loved and sang about under the classical pseudonym Clizia was Cassandra di Bartolomeo Bartolini Salimbeni. She was the wife of Carlo di Leonardo Ginori, a wealthy Florentine merchant born in 1473 who died in 1527, the same year as Cassandra. According to the poetic reconstruction of his love affair with Cassandra in his canzoniere, Cei is said to have loved her when she was unmarried, and to have continued to nurture his affection for her even after her marriage, until he was forced to leave Florence for reasons that remain unknown, but which were perhaps related to the turbulent political events of his lifetime." (translated from DBI) During the turbulent period of Florentine history between Charles VIII's entry into the city and Girolamo Savonarola's death, Cei dedicated his poetic talent to the faction of the arrabbiati, who were vehement opponents of Savonarola's policies. His poetry was not only hostile towards the Dominican friar, but also, more broadly, towards religion and the Church. According to the Florentine historian Filippo de' Nerli, Cei was "exiled because of a sonnet." In several of his poems, Cei himself tells us that he left Florence at the end of his seven-year romance with Clizia, which began in 1494. Only six copies of this edition in public libraries outside of Italy. Our copy comes from the library of Girolamo d'Adda Salvaterra (1815–1881), one of the most prominent Italian bibliophiles and rare book collectors of the XIX century.

EDIT16 CNCE 10684; Gamba 1080: "Molto raro. […] Osservò il Crescimbeni, che, quanto a vivezza, è stato il Cei uno de' migliori poeti, e che in molto conto debbon essere spezialmente tenute le sue rime anacreontiche"; Renouard, Filippo Junta, 7.