Boccaccio - Decamerone - 1762

BOCCACCIO BETWEEN EROS, PLAGUE, AND CENSORSHIP, IN THE ELEGANT “LONDON” EDITION OF 1762
Fascinating eighteenth-century edition of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, printed with a false London imprint but in reality issued from Giovanni Haberkorn’s printing house in 1762. The work represents one of the most important Enlightenment attempts to restore the Boccaccian text in a correct and critically revised form, enriched by the author’s life and by historical and philological observations attributed to Vincenzo Martinelli. The Decameron, an absolute masterpiece of European narrative, here preserves all its scandalous, ironic, and modern force: a hundred tales suspended between eros, plague, social satire, and human intelligence. The specimen preserves the contemporaneous full leather binding and a suggestive English ex-libris.
MARKET VALUE
eighteenth-century editions of the Decameron with an engraved frontispiece and Enlightenment critical apparatus are highly sought in the international antiquarian market. Complete copies in good condition can range from 600 to 1,500 euros. The present copy, though with structural defects to the binding, retains considerable collectible interest for authenticity, completeness, and typographic quality.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary full-leather binding with gilded title on the spine; spine with gaps and structural wear. Volume detached into three blocks of pages. Front board detached. English ex-libris on the front paste-down. Calcographic frontispiece with portrait of the author. Pages with some foxing and physiological browning, stains and signs of use. In old books with a multi-century history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 16; 574; (2); 8nn; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, surnamed Prince Galeotto: diligently corrected, and augmented with the author’s life, and other historical and critical observations.
London, Giovanni Haberkorn, 1762.
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). With critical contributions attributed to Vincenzo Martinelli.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The Decameron stands as one of the foundational works of modern Western literature. Through the hundred novellas told by ten young people fleeing the plague of Florence in 1348, Boccaccio constructs a narrative universe ruled by intelligence, moral ambiguity, desire, and the satire of religious and social institutions. In the Enlightenment eighteenth century, the work was profoundly reassessed not only as a literary masterpiece but also as a linguistic model and historical document of Italian civilization. The false “London” printer’s imprinting was common in editions of texts potentially controversial or licentious: it evoked cultural freedom and allowed greater commercial circulation.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Giovanni Boccaccio was born in 1313 and was one of the leading figures of Italian Humanism alongside Dante and Petrarch. A writer, poet, and scholar, he revolutionized European narrative through the Decameron, introducing a new representation of the individual, desire, and society. His influence extended from Renaissance novella to modern European prose.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Editions of the Decameron were often subject to censorship, expurgation, and moral revision between the 16th and 18th centuries. The 1762 edition belongs to the era of illuminated reissues and philologically updated texts of Boccaccio’s work. Giovanni Haberkorn, active in 18th-century Italian printing, contributed to the diffusion of elegant and learned editions intended for aristocratic libraries and European collectors. Large-format copies with an engraved frontispiece are increasingly difficult to find on the market.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Mambelli, Gli annali delle edizioni boccaccesche.
Gamba, Serie dei testi di lingua.
Graesse, Trésor de livres rares et précieux, I.
ICCU / OPAC SBN, records of the Haberkorn 1762 edition.
Brunet, Manuel du libraire, I.
De Batines, Bibliografia boccaccesca.
British Library, catalogs of eighteenth-century editions of the Decameron.
Cataloghi Hoepli e Olschki relating to eighteenth-century Italian literature.