Giulio Cesare Croce - Historia de la vida, hechos y astucias sutilisimas del rustico Bertoldo, la de Bertoldino, su hijo, - 1769

Bertoldo fully belongs to the tradition of wise seers: ugly and deformed, but with the right expression to resolve delicate situations. He was extremely small in body: a very round, ball-shaped head; a very wrinkled forehead; very red eyes, bursting with fire; very long, bristly eyebrows; donkey-like ears; a large, slightly cross-eyed mouth, with the lower lip hanging, resembling that of a horse; a reddish beard so long it reached his chest, ending in a point that mimicked that of a stallion; very sharp noses turned upward, extremely long; teeth protruding from his mouth like boar tusks, with three or four chins in his throat, making such noise when he spoke that it sounded like pots boiling over a fire... It can be said that this man was the complete opposite of Narcissus.

Early and very rare translation into Spanish, printed in Barcelona in 1769, of one of the masterpieces of picaresque literature, the 'History of the life, deeds, and very subtle cunning of rustic Bertoldo, that of Bertoldino, his son, and that of Cacaseno, his grandson: a work of great entertainment.' Translated from the Tuscan language into Spanish by Juan Bartholome. Three parts in one volume, complete work.

The first complete edition appeared in Italian in 1736, and the first Castilian edition in 1745. This edition, printed in Barcelona in 1769 at the Suriá workshops, is of extraordinary rarity. The global OCLC catalog records only two copies in public libraries worldwide, one of which is held at the National Library of Scotland (signature: Special Collections Edinburgh [Ae].6/2.6), and the other at the Biblioteca de la Universitat de Barcelona CRAI (signature: Sala d'accés restringit B-69/7/1).

Illustrated copy with 21 humorous full-page engravings (complete). Decorated initials, vignettes, and ornamental engravings. Full calf binding from the period with the title labeled on the spine. Worn but strong and solid. Text in Spanish. 18 x 11.5 cm, 315 grams. [8], 356, [12] pages. Missing one text leaf (pages 249-250). Complete work in one volume, divided into three stories or chapters, the first with a title page and the other two with their own frontispieces. The author of the first two narratives is Giulio Cesare Croce; the last is Adriano Banchieri. Rare.

Giulio Cesare Croce; Adriano Banchieri; Juan Bartholome, History of the life, deeds, and most subtle cunning of rustic Bertoldo, that of Bertoldino, his son, and that of Cacaseno, his grandson: a work of great entertainment and utmost morality, where the wise will find much to admire and the ignorant infinite to learn from; divided into three treatises. In Barcelona: By Francisco Suriá, printer, 1769.


Ref. library: C95390480875