THE BRAVE KNIGHT, ‘WIZARDS AND EVIL POWERS’

Il Fido amante, poema eroico.

Mantua, [(colophon:) Giacomo Ruffinello, 1582].

Large 8vo, ff. [iv], 217, [1]; with elaborate woodcut title, 36 woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces, printer’s device to last leaf; occasional very mild browning, but a very good, clean, crisp copy in later in eighteenth-century stiff vellum, flat spine decorated in gilt, paper label; gilding and label a little faded.

£600

Approximately:
US $757€702

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Il Fido amante, poema eroico.

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First edition of an Italian Renaissance heroic poem in thirty-six cantos, much appreciated by Tasso and published the year after the first authorized edition of the Gerusalemme liberata.

‘Composed to celebrate the lineage of Gonzaga, [Il fido amante] sings the deeds and trials of brave knight Gonzago, in his attempts to deserve the favour of his beloved Ippolita-Vittoria. [In a tradition championed not long before by Ariosto,] the quest is entwined with supernatural events, wizards, and evil powers’ (DBI, trans.).

Adams, G 856; BM STC Italian, p. 308; Olschki, Choix 18508; ICCU/EDIT16, 21437.

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