Search Results: Authors starting with T from Govi Rare Books LLC

12mo (140x83 mm). [6], 166, [2] leaves. Collation: a6 A-O12. The leaf O12 is a blank. Contemporary vellum, spine with gilt title on label (stain on the back panel). Ownership entries of a certain Luigi Bernini. Wormhole in the last 3 leaves with loss of text, two small emblems stamped on the title page, a bit browned, but genuine.
FIRST EDITION, second issue, of the first draft of the Secchia rapita, the most successful mock-heroic poem of Italian literature. Composed between 1614 and 1618, the work first circulated in manuscript form, immediately attracting the attention of the Inquisition. After several (sometimes illegal) attempts to have it printed in Modena and Padua, Tassoni was forced to go to France to avoid ecclesiastical censure. It was through the efforts of Jean Chapelain, a friend and collaborator of G.B. Marino, that Tassoni's poem was eventually printed in Paris in late 1621. Of this first Paris edition three issues are known. Almost at the same time, a counterfeit, probably printed in… Read More

A URBAN TRAGICOMEDY
FOR THE WEDDING BADOER-CONTARINI
12mo (134x73 mm). 65, [1] leaves. Collation: A-E12 F6. The last leaf is a blank. Printer's device on title page. Roman and italic types. Woodcut decorative ornaments and initials. Later flexible vellum. On the last leaf verso manuscript dedication "Alla Serenis.ma Sig.ra Palazzina Anconitana" signed with the letter "G" and followed by the drawing of a heart within a square. Some light marginal staining.
Rare first edition of this tragicomedy in five acts in verse dedicated to Giovanni Badoer on the occasion of his wedding with Maria Contarini.
In the dedication, dated Venice, 20 September 1597, the author states that with this play he introduced something new into drama by bringing love stories far away from woods and rivers (i.e., pastoral and piscatorial dramas) and setting them for the first time in a urban landscape (Rome is the scene): "nel prendere argomento io della mia favola, Cittadino, & nell'introdurre Città, e Cittadini, forsi non ho… Read More