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La Dafne, nuovamente stampata in occasione delle felicissime nozze del signor marchese Pier Francesco Rinuccini, ciamberlano di S.A.I.R. la granduchessa di Toscana, barone dell’Impero, con la nobil donzella la signora Teresa Antinori.

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Scarce edition of Rinuccini’s Dafne, the first printed opera libretto; a rare survival preserved unbound in folded sheets.

‘Generally considered the first opera’ (Grove), Dafne was performed in Florence for the Carnivals of 1598, 1599, and 1600, and its libretto published in 1600 (although a single copy of an undated edition, today preserved in New York Public Library, could possibly be associated with the first performance of 1598). The present edition, curated by Luigi Fiacchi, was printed for the prominent patron of music Pietro Leopoldo Ricasoli (1778–1850) to celebrate the marriage of his brother-in-law, Pierfrancesco Rinuccini, the last descendent of Dafne’s author Ottavio, with the noblewoman Teresa Antinori.

Library Hub records only three copies in UK, at Oxford, Leeds, and the Rylands.

Gamba 844 (‘Bella, nitida e corretta edizione’).

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