Tasso - Goffredo - 1583

CARTOON CARTIGLI AND CENSORSHIP: THE HIDDEN FACE OF THE FIFTEENTH-CIF CHRONICLE
This Venetian edition of 1583 of Goffredo by Torquato Tasso, printed by Francesco de’ Franceschi, sits at one of the most unstable and fertile moments in the editorial history of the poem: a phase in which Gerusalemme Liberata circulates in forms still fluid, subject to revisions, inquisitorial tensions, and continuous reworkings. It is not a fixed text, but a living organism, atraversed by variants and interventions that reflect the cultural climate of the Counter-Reformation. The two-column layout, together with the arguments enclosed within wood-engraved cartigli, serves not only an aesthetic function but builds a true reading path, marked, guided, almost theatrical. The reader is guided into the poem as if inside a rhetorical and visual machine. The second title page dedicated to the five cantos of Camillo Camilli reveals the open nature of the edition: a book that expands, that incorporates, that adapts to the taste and expectations of the public. The contemporary parchment binding, decorated, finally restores the volume to its original dimension of a representational object: not only a book to read, but a symbol of status, a tangible sign of belonging to a high and militant culture.
MARKET VALUE
The Venetian editions of Goffredo printed by Francesco de’ Franceschi in the 1580s appear with some regularity on the antiquarian market, but the quality of the copies leads to wide price variations. The copies bound in decorated contemporary leather, complete and well preserved, are considerably rarer and more sought after. The value generally ranges between 900 and 1,200 euros, with the possibility of exceeding this threshold for particularly pristine copies, with sharp ornamental apparatus and original bindings well preserved. Collecting interest is sustained by the centrality of Tasso’s name, the editorial fortune of the text, and the solidity of Venetian production of the period.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary binding in nut-brown leather, decorated on the boards with the central fleur-de-lis and corner motifs pressed dry; spine adorned with Renaissance-style friezes. Text set in double column, with the cantica arguments enclosed within finely engraved woodcut cartigli, which visually structure the page. Present figurative printer’s mark on the frontispiece. Inner second title page with the title I cinque canti di Camillo Camilli, relating to the added section. Leaves with widespread browning and slight irregularities; there are mispaginations, not uncommon in period editions. Collation: pp. (2); 24 nn.; 236; 18 nn.; (2); 8 nn.; 58; (4). In old books, with a centuries-long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description.
FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Il Goffredo del S. Torquato Tasso.
Venetia, presso Francesco de’ Franceschi Senese, 1583.
Torquato Tasso.
CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Il Goffredo represents one of the editorial forms through which Gerusalemme Liberata spread before its definitive textual stabilization. The title itself signals a phase of adjustment, in which the work’s identity is still in negotiation. The Venetian editions of Francesco de’ Franceschi play a crucial role in this process: Venice, European typographic capital, becomes the workshop where the tassian poem is made accessible, decorated, amplified. The use of woodcut cartigli for the cantica arguments introduces a quasi-exegetical dimension, guiding comprehension and suggesting keys of reading. The inclusion of Camilli’s five cantos testifies to a dynamic editorial practice, which tends to enrich and complete the text, but also to exploit its commercial success. Symbolically, the poem emerges as a complex device: a narrative of the crusade, but also an allegorical construction in which the clash between Christians and Muslims is transfigured into an inner conflict, moral tension, initiatory journey. In this sense, the book itself – with its stratified structure and elaborate form – becomes a mirror of the text’s complexity.
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Torquato Tasso was born in Sorrento in 1544 and died in Rome in 1595. A central figure of the Italian Renaissance, he authored Gerusalemme Liberata, an epic poem that profoundly influenced European literature. His life was marked by restlessness, crises, and tensions with religious and political authorities, which are reflected in the continual revision of his work and in the search for a balance between poetic freedom and orthodoxy.
PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The 1580s saw a true explosion of Goffredo editions, often characterized by textual variants, differences in apparatus, and editorial additions. Francesco de’ Franceschi, active in Venice, was among the protagonists of this pervasive diffusion. His editions are distinguished by solid typographic quality and particular attention to ornamental and paratextual elements. The presence of the second title page for Camilli’s five cantos is not a mere detail, but a sign of a precise commercial strategy: to offer the reader an expanded, updated product, competitive in a market that was extremely dynamic and crowded.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
EDIT16 CNCE (precise identification of the 1583 edition de’ Franceschi to be verified)
ICCU/OPAC SBN – records relating to Il Goffredo, Venice, Francesco de’ Franceschi, 1583
Adams, Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, T-148
British Museum, Short Title Catalogue of Italian Books, sub Tasso
Gamba, Serie dei testi di lingua, n. 1013
Graesse, Trésor de livres rares, VI, p. 29
Mortimer, Italian 16th Century Books, Harvard College Library, sections dedicated to Tasso
Parenti, Rarità bibliografiche dell’età moderna, tassian entries
Richardson, Print Culture in Renaissance Italy, chapters on the diffusion of the epic poem in the late sixteenth century