TASSO Bernardo - L'Amadigi - 1581

TASSO, Bernardo

L’Amadigi of S. Bernardo Tasso. To the Most Invincible and Catholic King Philip. Again reprinted, and purged from many errors present in the first edition.
Venice, Published by Fabio & Agostino Zoppini Brothers, 1581.

Provenance: Ex-libris with Robert Taparl, Count de Lagnasc (with coat of arms and motto), affixed to the back of the title page.

Quarto (approx. 210 × 152 mm when bound). Pages [8], 731, [1].
Two-column text in italic and roman type. Frontispiece within a rich woodcut frame with the printer’s mark of Verità (a woman with arms open between the symbols of the four Evangelists). Numerous embellished initials, grotesques, and woodcut headpieces.

Binding: soft parchment back, spine with title handwritten in brown ink “L’Amadigi del Tasso” and the letter “B” in red within a bordered frame.

Ancient ownership signature on the lower edge of the title page by Giuseppe Ascenso (Sicilian family of the Counts of Modica).

A chivalric-heroic poem in one hundred cantos in ottava rima, inspired by the Spanish Amadís de Gaula cycle. Bernardo Tasso (1493–1569), father of Torquato, composed it between 1543 and 1557 with the aim of elevating the romance of chivalry to the rank of an “heroic” poem according to Aristotelian principles, purging it of overly “lascivious” elements and focusing it on a faultless protagonist.
The work, dedicated to Philip II of Spain, enjoyed wide popular success (though criticized by purists) and was revised and completed posthumously by his son Torquato in the independent episode Floridante (1587).

This is the second edition, curated and “purged of many errors” by Lodovico Dolce, with his important preface “To the Readers.”

Importance and rarity
• Venetian edition of 1581, now uncommon on the market, especially in an early-binding and complete with the preliminary leaves.
• Significant witness to the reception of Tasso’s poem in the Counter-Reformation era and to the transition from the romance of chivalry to the heroic poem that foreshadows Jerusalem Delivered.
• A valuable exemplar for the parchment binding of the period, the presence of the noble French ex-libris, and the completeness of the text (pp. [8], 731, [1] as per standard collation: *⁴ A-2Y⁸ 2Z⁶).

Copy in good overall condition, with the usual signs of time (water stains, scattered foxing, some restorations to the paper) but solid and clearly legible.

Bibliographic references: EDIT16 CNCE 40794; BM-STC Italian p. 659.