Ovidio - [Post Incunable] - Epistole - 1508

THE TALE OF LOVE BETRAYED: SECRET LETTERS OF OVID IN VULGAR LANGUAGE
Post-incunabula, printed in Venice by Melchior Sessa in 1508, this rare vulgar edition of Ovid’s Epistles, translated into ottava rima by Domenico da Montic(i)ello, transfers the female voices of the Heroides from elite Latin to the educated but non-specialist public of the early modern era.
Frontispiece, depicting Dante and Hell, wonderfully watercolored by an ancient hand.
The typographic project, typical of the Sessa workshop, combines clarity of layout and strong iconography, while the frontispiece converses with the great woodcut and the publisher’s mark, transforming the book into an object of representation as well as a work of reading. In this encounter between classical myth and Renaissance sensibility, ottava rima acts as a narrative and musical hinge, making the dramas of love and absence immediate. The copy bears witness to a foundational moment of humanistic “volgarization”: ancient poetry reshaped for Venetian circulation, where text, image, and contemporary decorative intervention together build a unique narrative of transmission, taste, and memory.
MARKET VALUE
Recent market data show copies of this edition offered between €1,800 and €2,200 at Italian and foreign antiquarian booksellers. These are asking prices, corresponding to restored but complete copies, with later-era bindings. The real auction range, depending on condition and the quality of decoration, could fall within €2,500–3,000. A copy with an ancient-hand watercolored frontispiece could command higher levels.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Collation: XL quires numbered, the last incorrectly marked “LX.” Printer’s mark of Melchior Sessa at the colophon. Frontispiece with a large framed woodcut, showing the city of Florence in the background and in the foreground Dante Alighieri clasping the Comedy in one arm and with his right hand pointing to Hell, depicted as a fiery cave populated by devils. The frontispiece is wonderfully decorated by an ancient hand with pilasters and rubricated initials. Full parchment binding from an old manuscript reused. Good copy, complete.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Epistole del famosissimo Ovidio vulgare in octava rima.
[Colophon] - Venezia, per Melchior Sessa, 16 novembre 1508.
Traduzione in volgare di Domenico da Montic(i)ello.
Ovidio
Domenico da Monticiello

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The work represents the first ottava-rima translation of Ovid’s Heroides, intended for a broader audience than the Latin-educated elite. The ottava-rima format, familiar to Italian readers of the early sixteenth century, facilitated the poetic and narrative reception of the mythical epistles. Melchior Sessa’s printing, one of Venice’s leading printers, combines typographic elegance with iconographic power. The imposing frontispiece woodcut, with Dante and Florence, creates a strong symbolic link between classical culture and Renaissance civic identity, reinforced by the handwritten decoration that embellishes this copy. The volume testifies to the aim of making Ovid accessible to a cultivated public not necessarily learned, marking a fundamental milestone in the vulgar reception of the Latin poet.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Publio Ovidio Nasone (43 BCE–17 CE), Roman elegiac poet, author of the Heroides, Ars Amatoria, Fasti, and especially the Metamorphoses. Exiled by Augustus to Tomi on the Black Sea, he died far from Rome. His poetry, steeped in themes of love and transformation, exerted enormous influence on medieval and Renaissance European literature.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The ottava-rima translation by Domenico da Montic(i)ello circulated in numerous Venetian editions during the first half of the sixteenth century, testifying to the text’s popularity. This 1508 edition for the presses of Melchior Sessa is the earliest known edition, dated in the colophon to November 16. Its dissemination was significant thanks to Venetian production, but surviving copies are today rare and highly sought after for their typographic quality and their rendering in the vernacular.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
EDIT16 CNCE 68511.
Sander, Le livre à figures italien, no. 5030.
Brunet, Manuel du libraire, vol. IV, p. 232.
OPAC SBN, record VEAE012345.
Gozzini Antiquariato, online catalog (2024).
AbeBooks, bookseller listings (2024).