Ariosto - Orlando Furioso - 1713

DAMES, KNIGHTS, DUELS AND MAGIC: ORLANDO FURIOSO IN 18TH-CENTURY VENICE
This 1713 Venetian edition of Orlando Furioso restores Ludovico Ariosto’s poem in an elegant eighteenth-century guise, enriched by Lodovico Dolce’s ottava rima arguments and Tommaso Porcacchi’s allegories. Printed in Venice by Domenico Louisa, the work stands as a true interpretive compendium of the Ariosto masterpiece: text in two columns, woodcut vignettes, friezes and tailpieces accompany the reader on a path that in the eighteenth century has come to assume canonical and scholastic value. The inclusion of the Five Cantos with their own title page completes the editorial plan, offering an Ariosto that is at once poetic and moralized, spectacular and commented.
MARKET VALUE
The illustrated eighteenth-century Venetian octavo editions of Orlando Furioso, complete and in good condition, generally fall within a range of 500 to 800 euros. Value varies according to the freshness of the papers, the completeness of the woodcut vignettes, the presence of the Five Cantos, and the quality of the binding. Copies with heavily worn papers, pronounced foxing or structural defects tend to be in the lower portion of the range, while well-preserved copies with a sharp iconographic apparatus can reach the higher end.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Pp. 462; 2 blanks; (2). From p. 415 onward, with its own title page: The Five Cantos by M. Lodovico Ariosto. Text set in two columns. Frontispiece ornament with a portrait of the author; ornaments, tailpieces and woodcut vignettes in the text. Contemporary card binding with manuscript title on the spine, partially erased, signs of wear; edges sprinkled red. Leaves with some browning and foxing. In old books with a long history, some imperfections may be present that are not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Orlando furioso.
With the Ottava rima Arguments by Lodovico Dolce, and the Allegories of Tommaso Porcacchi.
Venice, Domenico Louisa, 1713.
Ludovico Ariosto.
The Five Cantos by M. Lodovico Ariosto.
Venice, Domenico Louisa, 1713.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
First published in 1516 and definitively revised in 1532, Orlando Furioso is one of the highest peaks of European literature. A chivalric poem and at the same time a refined reflection on the disorder of the world, it interweaves loves, follies, magic, wars and journeys in a labyrinthine yet perfectly orchestrated narrative structure.
In the eighteenth century Furioso was already a canonical text of Italian culture: a work read for culture, but also for broader, domestic enjoyment. Lodovico Dolce’s Arguments condense each canto, guiding the reader, while Tommaso Porcacchi’s Allegories offer a moral and symbolic key, reinterpreting the work within an ethical and didactic horizon. The woodcut vignettes visualize duels, enchantments and fantastic landscapes, making the poem more accessible and spectacular.

The 1713 edition fits into a Venetian publishing tradition aimed at rendering Ariosto “explained” and accompanied, transforming the poem into a scholastic and domestic classic, stable in the bourgeois and aristocratic libraries of the time.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533), born in Reggio Emilia and active at the Este court of Ferrara, was a poet, diplomat and courtier. With Orlando Furioso he completed the chivalric tradition begun by Boiardo, blending irony, metrical harmony and sophisticated narrative construction. His language became a model of balance and grace, and the work enjoyed extraordinary European diffusion, profoundly influencing epic and novelistic literature in the ensuing centuries.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
After the three famous sixteenth-century editions edited by the author (1516, 1521, 1532), Furioso enjoyed vast editorial fortune. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Venetian editions, often illustrated and accompanied by interpretive apparatus, attest to the commercial and didactic vitality of the text. The 1713 Louisa edition represents one of the early eighteenth-century illustrated octavos, intended for an educated but not exclusively aristocratic audience, and reflects the full canonization of the poem within the Italian cultural panorama.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU / OPAC SBN, Orlando furioso, Venice, Domenico Louisa, 1713, with catalog records and library locations.
Edit16, for the sixteenth-century tradition of the text and the Dolce and Porcacchi apparatus.
Gamba, Bartolomeo, Series of language texts and other important works in Italian literature, Venice, 1839, pp. 77–85.
Agosti, Alberto, Ariostean bibliography, sections dedicated to illustrated and eighteenth-century editions.
Brunet, Jacques-Charles, Manuel du libraire et de l’amateur de livres, s.v. Arioste, for European editorial fortune.