Cinthio Ferrarese - Hecatommithi ... Cento Novelle - 1593

A HUNDRED STORIES TO LEARN TO DISOBEY: PASSION AND DESIRE, POWER AND VIOLENCE
Gian Battista Giraldi Cinzio’s Hecatommithi constitute one of the heights of Italian novella in the sixteenth century and, at the same time, one of its most troubling crossroads. Behind the orderly structure of the hundred novellas unfolds a world dominated by the conflict between law and passion, authority and desire, reason and violence. The Venetian edition of 1593, in two volumes bound into a single volume, presents the work at a mature stage of its reception, when the text is already recognized as a repertoire of narrative and as a tool of moral reflection. Cinzio’s stories do not console: they test, reveal the cracks of social order, and question the reader about the limits of human justice.
MARKET VALUE
In the market for late sixteenth-century Italian fiction, the sixteenth-century edition of Hecatommithi typically sells for between €3,000 and €5,000, with variations determined by the condition of the parchment, the quality of the frontispiece, and the completeness of the two volumes. Copies bound in contemporary leather, even with restorations, remain highly sought after for the literary importance of the work and for its role in the history of the European novella.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary parchment binding with restorations and reinforcements. 2 volumes in one. Printer’s mark on the frontispiece, decorative initials. Some browning and water damage; frontispiece slightly trimmed; some signs of woodworm, sometimes restored. In antique books with a centuries-long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 2nn; 302; 466; 16nn.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Hecatommithi, overo cento novelle.
Venetia, appresso Domenico Imberti, 1593.
Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinzio.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Written between the forties and fifties of the sixteenth century, the Hecatommithi arise as a conscious answer to the Boccaccio model, yet diverge in tone and aim. Cinzio introduces a strongly moralizing, often tragic novella, in which narration becomes a tool of ethical and political inquiry. Themes such as abuse of power, domestic violence, the fragility of laws, and the injustice of tribunals permeate the work with a harshness that anticipates modern sensibilities. It is no accident that many of these stories have enjoyed extraordinary European fortune: Shakespeare, in particular, drew on the Hecatommithi for Othello and Measure for Measure. The 1593 edition sits in the phase of full circulation of the text, when the collection is already canonized as a narrative repertoire and as an implicit manual of civil ethics.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinzio was born in Ferrara in 1504 and died in 1573. A poet, playwright, and storyteller, he was one of the central figures of Ferrara’s culture in the Renaissance. A professor of rhetoric and literature, he developed a theoretical reflection on tragedy and the novella that deeply influenced European literature. The Hecatommithi represents his most famous and lasting work.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The Hecatommithi enjoyed wide print dissemination from the first edition of 1565, with subsequent Venetian and Italian reprintings throughout the late sixteenth century. The 1593 Imberti edition marks the editorial stabilization of the text and its constant presence in the Venetian book market, aimed at an educated but broad audience interested in both narrative and moral reflection.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU / OPAC SBN
WorldCat
Bibliothèque nationale de France
G. Boccaccio, tradition of the Italian novella
E. Raimondi, Restless Renaissance
Studies on Giraldi Cinzio and the European fortune of the Hecatommithi