[ARIOSTO, LUDOVICO (1474-1533)]. Orlando furioso. Tutto ricorretto, & di nuove figure adornato. Con le annotationi, gli auvertimenti, & le dichiarationi di Ieronimo Ruscelli. La vita dell'autore descritta dal signor Giovan Battista Pigna. Gli scontri de' luoghi mutati dall'autore dopo la prima impressione. La dichiaratione di tutte le istorie, & favole toccate nel presente libro, fatte da m. Nicolò Eugenico. Di nuovo aggiuntovi li cinque canti del medesimo autore. Et una tavola de' principii di tutte le stanze. Con altre cose utili, & necessarie. In Venetia [Venice], appresso gli Heredi di Vincenzo Valgrisi. M. D. LXXX. [1580].
Hardcover. Reprint. Vellum-bound. Two parts in one volume, Quarto (4°) (250 x 180 mm), pp. [16], 654, [32]. Collation: *8, A-Z8, AA-UU8 (fol. UU8 blank). Later vellum over stiff boards; smooth spine with titles in gilt; red dyed page edges; initial and terminal blanks. Italian text in Italic and Roman type, the cantos printed in double columns. Title-page within an elaborate architectural woodcut border containing Valgrisi's serpent device and medallion portrait of Ariosto (a reverse copy of the one by Giolito), imprint set in type within a cartouche placed in the lower part of the border. Another Valgrisi device on the separate title-page of the second part ("I cinque canti"), which contains the Annotationi by Ruscelli. Many woodcut historiated initials, framed headings, and tail-pieces; fifty-one full-page woodcut illustrations (attributed to Dosso Dossi [Kupferstich & Holzschnitt", pp. 282-83]), one at the beginning of each canto, set within two different borders with figures and grotesques. Five woodcuts illustrating the added Cinque Canti section. Two smaller cherub borders for the argumento to each canto.
Condition: GOOD. Binding secure, some marking to covers, majority of woodcuts very good, top edge slightly cropped, title-page worn and repaired with minor loss of the woodcut design, a2 repaired in margin, single tract in inner margin at beginning, margin of pp47/48 restored, p.49 repaired without loss, final textual leaf worn in fore margin with slight loss of text, last quires with staining.
Note: The handsome and rare "Furioso" in quarto - a splendid sixteenth-century edition, thus a faithful reprint of that printed by Valgrisi himself in 1565 (this is the first edition in-4 ° realized by the heirs of Valgrisi but similar to the previous editions of the same printer), annotated by Girolamo Ruscelli (1504-1566), the engravings are most likely based on drawings by Dosso Dossi and had already been used in preceding editions. These blocks are the first full-page illustrations for Ariosto (see Mortimer). Valgrisi printed his first Furioso in 1556, and produced more editions of Ariosto's poem than any other save that of Giolito, with seventeen editions up to 1587, as well as an octavo edition which was produced for a cheaper market. Ruscelli began work on a new Orlando between 1552 and 1553. He based his editorial work on the text printed by Giolito in 1552, which he claimed to have compared with previous editions from the 1530s, as well as some autograph corrections received by Ariosto's brother Galasso. His Furioso “tutto ricorretto” is supplemented with new commentaries and paratexts, among others his Annotationi, et Avvertimenti sopra i luoghi importanti del Furioso. From the edition issued in 1560 the poem is further accompanied by an enlarged version of Ariosto's Vita, composed by the secretary of the Estense court and minister of Alfonso II Giovanni Battista Pigna (1529-1575). Starting with the Furioso of 1565, Valgrisi added the texts of the Cinque Canti, allegorical prose, and argumenti by Luigi Groto from Adria (1541-1585). The Valgrisi Furioso offers one of the finest examples of multi-narrative book illustration, with the first full-page woodcuts for each canto of Ariosto's masterpiece, all newly designed. Each woodcut, framed within fine borders with figures and grotesques, records one or more scenes from the illustrated canto, rendered with a skilful use of perspective and close attention to the iconographic tradition established by Giolito. In the nineteenth century, Girolamo Baruffaldi ascribed the designs for these woodcuts to the Ferrarese painter Dosso Dossi (1480-1542), while Paul Kristeller later attributed them to his brother Battista Dossi (1517-1548), owing to the latter's stylistic tendencies. Recently, Battista's name has been proposed again, along with that of an artist belonging to the circle of Giovanni Britto. A further innovative feature of the Valgrisi cycle is the introduction of geographic charts as backgrounds for the multiple plots of the poem: an apt visual representation of that geographical space which Ariosto continuously enlarged in the Furioso, ultimately including, in the definitive edition of 1532, important discoveries of the navigators of his time. The marvellous woodblocks continued to be re-used in subsequent editions issued from Valgrisi's printing house up until 1603. [S.T.C. Italian Books, p. 40. Guidi, p. 84. Melzi, p. 165. Melzi-Tosi, pp. 65-66. Baruffaldi, p. 302. Mazzucchelli, I, p. 1073. Brunet, I, p. 436. Graesse, I, p. 199. Coccia, The illustrations of Orlando Furioso, pp. 308-309. Index Aureliensis, 107.552. See Adams, A-1673, A-1676 (editions of 1571).Mortimer Italian, 29; Agnelli-Ravegnani I, 135.] [USTC 810785].
