Barberino - Documenti d'Amore - 1640

LOVE, LAW, AND SYMBOL: THE SECRET TREATY OF BARBERINO BETWEEN THE MIDDLE AGES AND ROMAN BAROQUE
This Roman edition of 1640 of the Documents d’amore marks one of the most fascinating moments in the transmission of a deeply complex and visionary medieval text. Born as a moral and allegorical sum between law, poetry, and social conduct, Francesco da Barberino’s work is here reforged in Baroque Rome under the presses of Vitale Mascardi, taking on a new visual and conceptual form. The engravings transform doctrine into symbolic spectacle, giving concrete shape to the abstractions of Love, Virtue, and Discipline. A book thus emerges that is at once an ethical code and an allegorical theater, a bridge between the courteous world of the fourteenth century and the emblematic sensibility of the Seicento (Seventeenth Century).
MARKET VALUE
Seicento illustrated editions of the Documents d’amore, complete and with well-preserved iconographic apparatus, generally command between 500 and 900 euros.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary binding in basswood calf, spine with raised bands, title in gold and an inserted label; losses and signs of wear. Illustrated with numerous copperplate engravings on full page and decorative vignettes; engraved frontispiece with a winged putto within a landscape. Interior with some browning and foxing, tarry halos and signs of use. In old books with a long history, certain imperfections may be present and not always noted in the description. Pp. (8); 48 nn; 376; 138 nn; (8).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Documents d’amore
Rome, Stamperia di Vitale Mascardi, 1640.
Francesco da Barberino.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Francesco da Barberino (c. 1264–1348) was a jurist, poet, and moralist. Active between Florence, the papal court, and Avignon, he developed an original synthesis between legal culture and the chivalric literary tradition. In the Documents d’amore he elaborated a normative system for amorous and social conduct, structured in allegorical form and accompanied by a rich symbolic apparatus.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The work circulated initially in illuminated manuscripts, often richly decorated, confirming its visual and allegorical nature. The printed editions are relatively rare and late: the Roman edition of 1640, issued by Mascardi’s press, is one of the most important and representative, distinguished by its extensive engraved apparatus that reworks the medieval illuminated tradition in a calcographic key. Its diffusion was limited to an educated and antiquarian audience, interested in both the literary value and the iconographic value of the volume.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU/OPAC SBN: record for “Documenti d’amore,” Rome, Mascardi, 1640 (verification of a specific copy recommended)
WorldCat: Francesco da Barberino, Documents d’amore, Rome, 1640
Brunet, Manuel du libraire, I, col. 660
Graesse, Trésor de livres rares, I, p. 310
Gamba, Serie dei testi di lingua, n. 123
Edit16 (for the earlier printing tradition and Italian editorial context)
Studi sulla cultura emblematica e sull’iconografia morale nel Seicento romano