Girolamo Benivini - Opere - 1522

Venice: Niccolò Zoppino and Vincenzo di Paolo, 1522.

"Esteemed edition with the Frottolas of the various Authors printed for the first time" (Chiesa, Libri italiani rari del Rinascimento, no.19). As Dionisotti states, this edition is modeled on the previous Florentine one, but in the dedication it is stressed that the work, badly printed in Florence "lying like a gleaming gem in manure" would be, therefore the curator Cassiodoro Ticinensis had it "with careful vigilance brought down to first clarity, not postponing the observation of the rules of the vernacular more lucid language". It was not just words, as Dionisotti rightly notes: "between Venice and Padua, three years before the Prose of Bembo appeared, the Lombard Cassiodoro began correcting the Works of Benivieni systematically, according to those 'rules of the most lucid vernacular language' which the Friulan Fortunio had formulated, and which in Florence were ignored or rejected" (C. Dionisotti, Machiavellerie, Turin, 1980, pp. 245, 347).

In-octavo (142×92 mm). 72 leaves numbered (of 208). Text in italic type. Binding in half-leather from the 19th century with gilt borders and title on the spine, title within a figurative woodcut frame with scenes of knights, tournaments, mottos and maxims inscribed in the frame. Unfortunately incomplete, only the first work present. Slightly foxed, overall in good state of preservation.