ARIOSTO IN LONDON
ARIOSTO, Ludovico.
Delle Satire e rime … libri due.
London, John Pickard, 1716.
12mo in sixes, pp. [12], 211, [1], with an engraved portrait frontispiece; woodcut ornament to title-page; a very good copy in contemporary English speckled calf, covers ruled gilt, spine gilt in compartments.
First edition with the annotations of Paolo Antonio Rolli (1687–1765), the celebrated émigré Italian poet who moved to London in 1716, became a private tutor, wrote libretti for Handel and others, and translated Paradise Lost into Italian. He also edited Italian classics that were under ecclesiastical censorship in Italy including, in addition to Ariosto’s satires, Marchetti’s translation of Lucretius and the Decameron. Pickard published most of these texts, along with Rolli’s own Narciso and Rime.
ESTC T142884 (listing five copies in North America).
