PETITE PARISIAN PASTOR FIDO

Il Pastor Fido.

‘In Parigi, appresso Tomaso Iolly, 1706’.

16mo, pp. 256; engraved title-page, 6 additional full-page signed engravings by Antonio Luciani, woodcut initials and head-pieces; final page slightly soiled, but an attractive copy in early nineteenth-century sheep (front free endpaper watermarked ‘1805’), spine gilt in compartments, raised bands, speckled edges; joints and corners worn, boards lightly rubbed; occasional later marginal annotations in pencil.

£175

Approximately:
US $226€208

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Scarce Parisian edition of Guarini’s immensely popular ‘pastoral tragi-comedy’, charmingly illustrated by Antonio Luciani.

Guarini’s Pastor fido (first published in 1590) follows the fortunes of Silvio and Amarilli, the last two beings on earth of immortal descent, and was a huge popular success all across Europe. The date of publication on the title-page has been varyingly interpreted as 1700 or 1706: the Taylorian Library records two quasi-identical editions of the same date, ‘with the same engraved title and plates … but with a completely different setting of the text’. The present edition can be distinguished by the fact that the woodcut ‘S’ to p. 3 has two flower-heads instead of four, and the text is considered ‘generally more carefully composed’ (Thomas, p. 97).

Thieme-Becker XXIII: 437; D.H. Thomas, An Annotated Checklist of the Works of Battista Guarini (2010). OCLC finds four copies in the US dated 1700 (Library of Congress, UCLA, University of Chicago, University of Minnesota), and four in the British Isles dated 1706 (Royal Holloway, Taylor Institution Library, Trinity College Dublin, University of Manchester).

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