Ludovico Ariosto - Orlando Furioso; First Valgrisi Edition, Illustrations by Dosso Dossi, Epic Chivalry Romance - 1556

1556 FIRST EDITION OF THE EPIC CHIVALRY NOVEL "Orlando Furioso or Roland Furious" by Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533), an Italian poet, playwright, and diplomat. This book, "Orlando Furioso," is richly illustrated with a full page frontispiece and 46 full-page elaborate and skilful engravings created as multi-episodic sequences and dozens of initial vignettes, each illustration inside a very elaborate frame, with angels, monsters, animals and grotesque masks. The volume is divided into two parts/books, each with its own title and date. This is the masterpiece of the publisher Vincenzo Valgrisi and with illustrations based on drawings by the painter Dosso Dossi (1486–1542) and then engraved by his brother Giovanni Battista Dossi. The chivalric poem is composed of 46 cantos/chants in octaves, revolving around the character of Christian knight Orlando/Roland, mythological figures, witches, wizards, monsters, Merlin the Magician, princesses, sex, fantasy, humor, kings, spells, madness, war, love, muslims besieging Paris and invading Charlemagne's France. The plot unfolds by evoking a mythical time mourned by the author, against which the war between Muslim kingdoms of Spain, the Maghreb and Christians unfolds. The illustrations depicting battle scenes, spells, animals, magic, monsters, cavarly and chivalric duels that celebrate the mythical time of Charlemagne's paladins and knights. The figurative apparatus contributed to the poem's success, established a new aesthetic and editorial canon, making it a classic of European literature. The novel remains relevant today; Ludovico Ariosto is aware that he lives in relative truths and realities. Accepting that the world is dominated by irrationality frees us from anguish and allows us to live with lightheartedness and a critical spirit. This flexible perception of reality perfectly anticipates our digital age, where the line between accurate information, deepfakes, and fake news is constantly blurred and contaminated.

1556 RARE FIRST EDITION AND NO COPIES FOR SALE, the 1580 edition is on sale US$ 10,000.00 here; https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30629993066, the first edition of 1556 and with original binding is offered to you at a fraction of that price. This edition features Girolamo Ruscelli's linguistic revisions, his arguments at the beginning of each canto summarizing the plot, and a brief commentary; Ruscelli also explains to the reader how the rules of perspective apply to the many scenes present in these cuts. All illustrations are well engraved with intact margins, with great contrast and definition, one of the best productions of Italian illustrators of the 16th century. Each woodcut for each chapter/canto visually condenses the subsequent narration. The varied exploits of the characters span the globe, from the wild forests of Northern Scotland to the furthest East Indies, and from the deserts of North Africa to the frozen northern seas, plus a trip to the moon. The figures carved in the foreground are characterized by exaggeratedly muscular bodies, while, proceeding towards the horizon and to create spatial depth, they shrink to the point of being illegible; the various scenes are usually arranged in chronological sequence from foreground to background in a zigzag pattern. With these editions of Orlando Furioso, the trend reversed; if initially Ovid had profoundly inspired Ariosto's style and imagery, in the 16th century the relationship reversed. Illustrated editions of Ovid adopted the same visual and narrative dynamism successfully experimented with in Orlando Furioso.

TITLE: Orlando Furioso. Di m. Lodovico Ariosto, tutto ricorretto et di nuove figure adornato...(Orlando Furioso by M. Ludovico Ariosto, everything corrected and adorned with new figures...)
AUTHORS: Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533) and with annotations and comments by Girolamo Ruscelli and Giovanni Battista Pigna. Drawings by the painter Dosso Dossi (1486–1542) and then engraved by his brother Giovanni Battista Dossi
PUBLISHER: Vincenzo Valgrisi
DATE: MDLVI (1556), printed in Venice, text in Italian

DESCRIPTION: in 4° size height 265 x width 200 mm or 10.5 by 7.9 inches. [12] preliminary unnumbered sheets, 556 pages, [60] unnumbered sheets for index. Antique hard parchment binding, with titles on the spine, with some small defects, losses, and stains on the edges and covers. The binding is solid, intact, with no cracks or tears, and in perfect working order and very sturdy, as shown in the photos. Text in two columns, italic type, 46 intact illustrations per page by the painter Dosso Dossi and his brother Giovanni Battista Dossi. The initial title is slightly soiled and has small defects but is intact, slightly short at the bottom. Text and illustrations intact, with light stains and oxidation scattered here and there, especially on the outer white margins. A fine copy of a masterpiece of 16th-century illustration. 1556 RARE FIRST EDITION.

LITERATURE & REFERENCES: World Cat OCLC n°258077370 & 1290795944; USTC n°810690; Brunet I, 433-434; GUIDI 59; KRISTELLER, P. (Kupferstich und Holzschnitt) 286; Mortimer, Harvard Italian 29; EDIT 16th Centurt Italian Editions n°2697; Paris, France, Bibliothèque Mazarine Shelfmark: 8° 21889; New York, United States, The Morgan Library Shelfmark: PML 35259; Roger Baillet, Le Monde poétique de l'Arioste. Essai d'interprétation du Roland furieux, L'Hermès, Parigi, 1977; Cristina Barbolani, Poemas caballerescos italianos, Editorial Síntesis, Madrid, 2005; Jo Ann Cavallo, The World Beyond Europe in the Romance Epics of Boiardo and Ariosto, University of Toronto Press, 2013; Julia M. Kisacky, Magic in Boiardo and Ariosto, Peter Lang, New York, 2000; Aline Laradji, La Légende de Roland: de la genèse française à l'épuisement de la figure du héros en Italie, L'Harmattan, Parigi, 2008; Michael Murrin, History and Warfare in Renaissance Epic, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago-London, 1997; Teagarden, Lucetta J. (25 March 2019). "Theory and Practice in English Versions of "Orlando Furioso"". The University of Texas Studies in English. 34: 18–34; "The Orlando Furioso and English Literature" in Reynolds, Vol. 1, pp. 74–88; Ascoli, Albert R. (1987). Ariosto's bitter harmony: crisis and evasion in the Italian renaissance. Princeton University Press.

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