Strozzi - Venetia edificata - 1621

The Book of Water and Fire: The Myth of Venice, Among the Mists of the Lagoon
Very rare first edition of the first 12 chapters, published three years before the definitive edition.
Rare first edition of one of the most ambitious epic poems dedicated to the foundation of Venice, published in 1621 in a sumptuous folio format by Alessandro Ciotti, with a magnificent illustrated title page and woodcut plates.
The Built Venice is a monumental work that interweaves founding myth, republican identity, and visionary tension, inscribing itself in the great Baroque season of civic celebration in poetic form. Giulio Strozzi, a central figure of Venetian cultural life among academies, theater, and early experiences of opera in music, constructs in twelve cantos a true literary cosmogony of the Serenissima, amid battles, prodigies, and allegorical apparitions. Venice thus emerges as a sacred city, daughter of water and of divine will, suspended between history and legend, earthly power and the image of the cosmic order.
Market value
Complete copies of the first edition of 1621 are extremely rare. The copies that have appeared on the international antiquarian market in recent decades are very few. The values range between 2,000 and 3,500 euros, depending on the presence of the plates and the binding.

Physical description and condition - collector's copy
In folio (335 x 234 mm); frontispiece featuring a perspective view of Venice, three full-page plates, large printer's mark at the end of the volume. Elegant eighteenth-century binding in hazelnut calfskin, with a triple gilt border on the boards and a spine decorated in gold with a central inlay, signs of wear. Pp. [8], 124, [2].

Full title and author
Venetia Edified: A Heroic Poem by Giulio Strozzi.
Venice, Alessandro Ciotti, 1621.
Giulio Strozzi

Context and Significance
Heroic poem in twelve cantos that blends legend and chronicle to celebrate the birth of Venice, from its mythical founding to the wars against the Huns. This work is an act of love and republican pride, in which Venice is depicted as a new Rome, a city born from water by divine will and destined to dominate the seas and the barbarians. The edition of 1621, today exceedingly rare, precedes by three years the complete and definitive edition. The woodcut plates and the illustrated title page make it a precious book also for its illustrative apparatus. In Baroque symbolism, the founding of the city assumes the features of a theophany: Venice is born from the watery element, arms itself against chaotic forces and rises as an ordering power, in a cycle that recalls the myth of cosmic creation and the construction of the ideal city.

Short biography of the author
Giulio Strozzi (1583–1652), a Venetian poet, dramatist and librettist, was a central figure in Baroque intellectual life. A member of the Accademie degli Incogniti and the Unisoni, he collaborated with Monteverdi and other musicians of the time, writing some of the early libretti for Venetian opera. He was also the tutor and adoptive father of Barbara Strozzi, a celebrated composer. His style blends erudition, epic imagination, and civil tension.

Printing history and circulation
Printed in Venice in 1621 by Alessandro Ciotti, this is the first edition of the work, which includes only the first twelve cantos of the poem. The definitive edition, with all twenty-four cantos, saw the light in 1624. The first printing was probably limited, intended for a select and academic audience, and today it is extremely rare.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Morazzoni, The Illustrated Venetian Book of the Seventeenth Century, p. 194
Piantanida 2760
Gamba 2151
Cicogna 4232
ICCU IT\ICCU\LO1E\058748
Copies available for consultation: National Library of Saint Mark, Braidense Library.