Orazio Toscanella - Bellezze Del Furioso - 1574

ARIosto, Lodovico (Arioste) — TOSCANELLA, Orazio (ed.)
Beauties from the Furioso of M. Lodovico Ariosto, selected by Orazio Toscanella: with the arguments and allegories of the cantos; with the allegories of the principal proper names in the work; and with the common locations of the author, arranged in alphabetical order, of the same.
In Venice, At Pietro dei Franceschi & nephews [Pietro dei Franceschi], M. D. LXXIV [1574].

One octavo volume bound (6ff;327pp.29ff), with its original binding (skin lacking), spine with raised bands, smooth boards ornamented by a central oval gold-embossed medallion, remaining cords partly preserved. Title page framed by a fine engraved architectural woodcut with the motto Virtus et Fortuna, and text entirely in italics. The work is richly illustrated with wood-engraved vignettes at the head of each canto, accompanied by their arguments in verse and their allegorical interpretations.

Edited and commented by the prolific Venetian scholar and translator Orazio Toscanella, this collection highlights the most splendid passages of Orlando Furioso, the absolute masterpiece of Renaissance Italian chivalric poetry written by Lodovico Ariosto.

Far from being a simple anthology, the work offers a genuine critical tool for readers of the sixteenth century: it details the arguments of each canto, deciphers hidden meanings through textual allegories, and even provides an alphabetical index of commonplaces and proper names. Dedicated to the ruler of Urbino, Francesco Maria II della Rovere, this imprimatur from the Pietro dei Franceschi presses testifies to the Renaissance’s enduring fascination with Carolingian epic, the valiant knights, the magicians, and the thwarted loves of Angelica and Rinaldo.

In the sixteenth century, Orlando Furioso was the book of the bedside for European aristocracy. Nevertheless, the epic’s monumental length sometimes discouraged hurried readers or those seeking immediate moral lessons. Orazio Toscanella had the bright idea of condensing and analyzing the “beauties” of the text to turn it into a manual that is at once entertaining and instructive.

The superb little wood engravings inserted at the beginning of each canto served as true comics of the time, allowing the reader to instantly recognize Orlando’s duels, Angelica’s epic flights, or the feats of the hippogryph.