The woodcuts illustrating this Florentine edition are highly praised, and rightly so. The inclusion of these works suggests the use of a still unidentified manuscript containing these novellas, whose language and narrative share characteristics with the Decameron. recently rediscovered : the anonymous Bonaccorso di Lapo Giovanni, the Bianco Alfani, possibly composed by Piero di Filippo del Nero, and above all the Grasso Legnaiolo, one of the most famous novellas of the Renaissance, now generally attributed to the Florentine Feo Belcari (1410-1484). Further, the Decameron of 1516 offers the first appearance in print of three additional novellas then erroneously attributed to Boccaccio and nuouamente ritrouate (fol. AA1v) possibly including a manuscript transcribed from authorial originals. The edition occupies an important position in the textual history of the Decameron, for while it is mainly based on the previous Florentine edition, it was corrected using early manuscripts, or as Bernardo Giunta states piu testi dallo originale transcripti (fol.
This is the first textual evidence available in an edition which indicates that Boccaccio was beginning to appeal to scholarly readers (R.
The 1516 Decameron is introduced, on the verso of the title-page, by an address to the reader ( messer giovanni bocchaccio al lectore ), in which the printer Bernardo Giunta, disguised as Boccaccio himself, praises the Giuntine edition over all others and praises Filippo Giunta s initiative of recovering Boccaccio s original text.
The first Giuntine edition of Boccaccio s masterpiece, a finely illustrated edition very rarely found on the auction market. Provenance: from the library of the great collector and politician from Naples Luigi Serra, 4th Duke of Cassano (1747-1825 ownership inscription Del Duca di Cassano on the verso of the front marbled flyleaf). A very fine copy, first and last leaves slightly dusted. A few minor scratches to the upper covers. Board edges gilt tooled, marbled pastedowns and flyleaves, inside dentelles, pale green silk bookmark. Small gilt tool work in the compartments, the title decamerone del boccaccio in gold. Smooth spine, divided into compartments by narrow gilt ornamental rolls. Late eighteenth-century red morocco, covers framed within triple gilt fillet, a small flower at each corner. Ninety- six smaller woodcut vignettes (43x70 mm), including one repeat, with most of these figures labelled on the block. d5v, y6r, 6r, A7v, F3v, and H7v), representing Boccaccio s brigade of storytellers seven women and three men seated in a garden, with the figures labelled on the block. a1r, at the beginning of the Proemio (74x93 mm) and subsequently repeated six more times (fols. Blank spaces for capitals, with printed guide letters. Woodcut printer s device on the verso of fol.
0 kommentar(er)
