Arioste

1542 · réf. 173105 — Venetia: Appresso Gabriel Iolito di Ferrari 1542. Leather bound. Good front hinge weaker than rear hinge wear to extremities text block and pages clean and tight. Full red leather with elaborate gilt embossed design front and back reeded gilt edges to covers five raised bands with gilt devices in compartments and applied leather label. All edges gilt with impressed cross design on all three text block edges. Ancient marbled endpapers with bookplate of Olin Lane Merriam on inside front pastedown. 260 xx leaves collated complete title page within engraved architectural border text with 46 woodcut engravings and engraved initial at beginning of each canto in text wood-engraved oval bust portrait of Ariosto on verso of leaf 260; unpaginated 20-leaf commentary by Lodovico Dolce has its own title page with wood-engraved vignette of phoenix rising at center of title page and verso of last leaf. This is the first complete printing with the "Espositione di tutti i vocaboli et luoghi difficili . con vna brieue dimostratione di molte comparationi & sentenze dall' Ariosto in diuersi autori imitate / raccolte da M. Lodovico Dolce" 20 leaves at end has special t.p." at rear after portrait. A lovely example in an exceptional binding. Similar copy sold for 5000 Euro in 2016. Appresso Gabriel Iolito di Ferrari hardcover books