Venice · May 1516
by BOCCACCIO, Giovanni (1313-1375)-DOLFIN, Nicolò, ed.(c. 1483-1528)
THE FIRST 4TO EDITION OF THE DECAMERON
4to (200x135 mm). [2], CCCLII, [10] leaves. Collation: A-X8 AA-XX8 AAA8 BBB12 +8. The last leaf is a blank. Colophon at l. BBB10v. Errata at ll. BBB11-12r. Index at ll. +1-7. Blank spaces for initials with guide-letters. Roman and italic type. Lavishly bound in full red morocco, panel decorated by an elaborate gilt frame within a double gilt fillet, gilt spine with five raised bands, compartments decorated with the same gilt patter as the panels, marbled endleaves, inside gilt dentelles, gilt edges (Hardy-Mennil). A beautiful copy.
First edition of the Decameron edited by Nicolò Dolfin and dedicated by him to the "Gentili et Valorose Donne" ('Gentle and Valorous Women)'. The Dolfin edition is a landmark in the history of the editing of Boccaccio's work, both for its format (it is the first 4to edition) and for the accuracy of the text, which the editor established with unprecedented philological care.
"After the printing press had been introduced into Italy in the 1460s, it is not surprising that it took over almost entirely the reproduction of a work as long as the Decameron. The text was printed in cities throughout the peninsula. Perhaps appropriately in view of the early manuscript circulation of the work, the first printed edition, known from its colophon as the 'Deo gratias', was produced in Naples around 1470; but Venice soon became the most influential centre of publication. For nearly half a century, no edition shows evidence of any concern to present an accurate text. But in the sixteenth century, the presentation of the Decameron as a text and as a material book changed direction again. We can identify three major tendencies, linked with each third of the century. The first was a completely fresh approach to the correctness of the text itself, beginning with two editions that appeared within two months of each other in 1516. This new concern reflects the rise in the status of Boccaccio's prose, and especially that of the Decameron, as a model for vernacular usage. It was now being imitated by the leading contemporary authors, notably Pietro Bembo and Iacopo Sannazaro; others who aspired to write elegant prose needed a reliable text to imitate if they were going to keep up to date with the latest trend. The almost simultaneous production of these two editions also reflects the intense rivalry developing between scholars and presses in Venice and Florence in editing Trecento literature. The first of this pair of editions was brought out in Venice in May by the press of Gregorio de Gregori and edited by the patrician Nicolò Delfino (Dolfin), who claimed to have restored the work 'alla sua intera et chiara lettione', selecting from 'molti antichissimi testi' those parts that seemed to correspond most closely to the author's intention. Florence responded with a Decameron based on the only previous Florentine edition (1483) with some use of the Florentine manuscript copied by Mannelli. The Venetian edition proved the more influential. Most significantly, a copy of it (now Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, 22 A 4 2) was used as the basis for another edition printed in Florence in 1527, prepared by a group of men who corrected Delfino's text with readings derived from manuscripts, including the Mannelli manuscript at a late stage. This assiduously prepared Decameron was, as we shall see, regarded as authoritative for over two centuries" (B. Richardson, Transformations of a text: Boccaccio's Decameron from manuscript to print and beyond, in: "ISLG Bulletin: the Annual Newsletter of the Italian Studies Library Group", 9, 2010, pp. 10-11).
"In 1516, two new editions appeared which bore witness to the most revolutionary changes in the presentation of the Decameron since woodcut illustrations had been introduced in 1492: the use of italic type and the quarto format. The first italic type had been cut for Aldo Manuzio by Francesco Griffo, and used for a series of Latin and vernacular texts in octavo format launched in 1501. It was modelled on a cursive script and allowed a greater amount of text to be placed on the page, making a quarto edition of the Decameron more economical and practical than if roman type had been used. The number of leaves in a book designed in quarto is naturally increased, creating a thicker volume, but it remains less monumental than a folio edition, more portable, and ultimately easier to read. Both the Florentine and Venetian editions of the Decameron printed in 1516 required fewer sheets of paper than any of the preceding editions, although the number of leaves is more than double than that in Bartolomeo Zanni's 1510 edition. Although not presented in the octavo format of Aldo's 'pocket-sized' editions of Petrarch and Dante, these two editions of the Decameron must have made a similarly dramatic impact on Boccaccio's readership in terms of their size alone. Furthermore, readers may well have begun to make a connection between the status of Boccaccio and his fellow authors, Petrarch and Dante, who had been treated in the same manner as classical authors in Aldo's revolutionary series. To underline this shift in emphasis, Gregorio de Gregori was the first to include a preface explicitly written by an editor, while the preface in the Florentine edition, ostensibly written by Boccaccio himself, also demonstrates that Filippo Giunta was concerned with recovering the 'original' text. This is the first textual evidence available in an edition which indicates that Boccaccio was beginning to appeal to scholarly readers. Both the Venetian and the Florentine editions return to a single-column layout, presumably because there was little practical incentive to include two columns of text on a smaller page. Giunta based his text on the preceding Florentine edition of 1483, together with several manuscripts, as might perhaps be expected given his proprietorial feelings towards the Tuscan language. Interestingly, however, he also decided to include woodcut illustrations based on those in the Venetian edition of 1492, while de Gregori eliminated ornamentation altogether from his edition, leaving only spaces for initials at the beginning of the proem, each day and each novella" (R. Daniels, Boccaccio and the Book. Production and Reading in Italy 1340-1520, London, 2009, p. 108).
Nicolò Dolfin was born in Venice at the end of the 15th century, certainly after 1483, the year of the marriage of his parents, who belonged to an important patrician family of the city. Nicolò was initiated into a political career, but was able to deepen his studies of both Latin and vernacular culture. The first information we have about his public activities dates from 1502, when he and Andrea Foscolo were sent to Ferrara by the Republic of Venice to represent it at the wedding of Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso d'Este. In 1516 he was elected Count of Pula, but the following year he resigned for health reasons and was succeeded by his brother Fantino. His participation in the debates and initiatives that took place in Venice at that time concerning the development of vernacular literature is very significant. A contemporary of Pietro Bembo and Trifone Gabriele, Dolfin, according to various contemporary testimonies, must have been an important point of reference for those who, in those years, turned their scholarly attention to vernacular authors, especially Petrarch and Boccaccio. Giangiorgio Trissino, in his dialogue Castellano published in 1529, mentions his name among those who first discussed the issue of Petrarch's poetic language. The relationship with Pietro Bembo was not only one of shared literary interests, but must have been one of direct acquaintance. No further information about his life is known, except for a few references in a letter by Girolamo Muzio, who recalls that he as "a very good friend of Nicolò Delfino" introduced Dolfin to Giulio Camillo, who had expressed the desire to meet him, and in the Proemio to Le volgari opere del Petrarcha con la espositione di Alessandro Vellutello da Lucca (Venice, 1525), in which Vellutello himself recounts how Dolfin urged him to write a commentary also on Petrarch's Trionfi. Dolfin died in Venice in May 1528. He printed only one work, the edition of Boccaccio's Decameron published in Venice in 1516 for Gregorio de Gregori. The rest of his literary production remained in manuscript or was published after his death (S. Foà, Dolfin, Nicolò, in: "Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani", vol. 40, Rome, 1991, s.v.).
A. Bacchi della Lega, Serie delle edizioni delle opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, Bologna, 1875, p. 34; Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Centenario della morte di Giovanni Boccaccio. Mostra di manoscritti, documenti e edizioni, Certaldo, 1975, II, no. 48; Edit 16, CNCE6239; B. Gamba, Serie dei testi di lingua, Venice, 1839, no. 169; Daniels, Op. cit., p. 197. (Inventory #: 210)
4to (200x135 mm). [2], CCCLII, [10] leaves. Collation: A-X8 AA-XX8 AAA8 BBB12 +8. The last leaf is a blank. Colophon at l. BBB10v. Errata at ll. BBB11-12r. Index at ll. +1-7. Blank spaces for initials with guide-letters. Roman and italic type. Lavishly bound in full red morocco, panel decorated by an elaborate gilt frame within a double gilt fillet, gilt spine with five raised bands, compartments decorated with the same gilt patter as the panels, marbled endleaves, inside gilt dentelles, gilt edges (Hardy-Mennil). A beautiful copy.
First edition of the Decameron edited by Nicolò Dolfin and dedicated by him to the "Gentili et Valorose Donne" ('Gentle and Valorous Women)'. The Dolfin edition is a landmark in the history of the editing of Boccaccio's work, both for its format (it is the first 4to edition) and for the accuracy of the text, which the editor established with unprecedented philological care.
"After the printing press had been introduced into Italy in the 1460s, it is not surprising that it took over almost entirely the reproduction of a work as long as the Decameron. The text was printed in cities throughout the peninsula. Perhaps appropriately in view of the early manuscript circulation of the work, the first printed edition, known from its colophon as the 'Deo gratias', was produced in Naples around 1470; but Venice soon became the most influential centre of publication. For nearly half a century, no edition shows evidence of any concern to present an accurate text. But in the sixteenth century, the presentation of the Decameron as a text and as a material book changed direction again. We can identify three major tendencies, linked with each third of the century. The first was a completely fresh approach to the correctness of the text itself, beginning with two editions that appeared within two months of each other in 1516. This new concern reflects the rise in the status of Boccaccio's prose, and especially that of the Decameron, as a model for vernacular usage. It was now being imitated by the leading contemporary authors, notably Pietro Bembo and Iacopo Sannazaro; others who aspired to write elegant prose needed a reliable text to imitate if they were going to keep up to date with the latest trend. The almost simultaneous production of these two editions also reflects the intense rivalry developing between scholars and presses in Venice and Florence in editing Trecento literature. The first of this pair of editions was brought out in Venice in May by the press of Gregorio de Gregori and edited by the patrician Nicolò Delfino (Dolfin), who claimed to have restored the work 'alla sua intera et chiara lettione', selecting from 'molti antichissimi testi' those parts that seemed to correspond most closely to the author's intention. Florence responded with a Decameron based on the only previous Florentine edition (1483) with some use of the Florentine manuscript copied by Mannelli. The Venetian edition proved the more influential. Most significantly, a copy of it (now Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, 22 A 4 2) was used as the basis for another edition printed in Florence in 1527, prepared by a group of men who corrected Delfino's text with readings derived from manuscripts, including the Mannelli manuscript at a late stage. This assiduously prepared Decameron was, as we shall see, regarded as authoritative for over two centuries" (B. Richardson, Transformations of a text: Boccaccio's Decameron from manuscript to print and beyond, in: "ISLG Bulletin: the Annual Newsletter of the Italian Studies Library Group", 9, 2010, pp. 10-11).
"In 1516, two new editions appeared which bore witness to the most revolutionary changes in the presentation of the Decameron since woodcut illustrations had been introduced in 1492: the use of italic type and the quarto format. The first italic type had been cut for Aldo Manuzio by Francesco Griffo, and used for a series of Latin and vernacular texts in octavo format launched in 1501. It was modelled on a cursive script and allowed a greater amount of text to be placed on the page, making a quarto edition of the Decameron more economical and practical than if roman type had been used. The number of leaves in a book designed in quarto is naturally increased, creating a thicker volume, but it remains less monumental than a folio edition, more portable, and ultimately easier to read. Both the Florentine and Venetian editions of the Decameron printed in 1516 required fewer sheets of paper than any of the preceding editions, although the number of leaves is more than double than that in Bartolomeo Zanni's 1510 edition. Although not presented in the octavo format of Aldo's 'pocket-sized' editions of Petrarch and Dante, these two editions of the Decameron must have made a similarly dramatic impact on Boccaccio's readership in terms of their size alone. Furthermore, readers may well have begun to make a connection between the status of Boccaccio and his fellow authors, Petrarch and Dante, who had been treated in the same manner as classical authors in Aldo's revolutionary series. To underline this shift in emphasis, Gregorio de Gregori was the first to include a preface explicitly written by an editor, while the preface in the Florentine edition, ostensibly written by Boccaccio himself, also demonstrates that Filippo Giunta was concerned with recovering the 'original' text. This is the first textual evidence available in an edition which indicates that Boccaccio was beginning to appeal to scholarly readers. Both the Venetian and the Florentine editions return to a single-column layout, presumably because there was little practical incentive to include two columns of text on a smaller page. Giunta based his text on the preceding Florentine edition of 1483, together with several manuscripts, as might perhaps be expected given his proprietorial feelings towards the Tuscan language. Interestingly, however, he also decided to include woodcut illustrations based on those in the Venetian edition of 1492, while de Gregori eliminated ornamentation altogether from his edition, leaving only spaces for initials at the beginning of the proem, each day and each novella" (R. Daniels, Boccaccio and the Book. Production and Reading in Italy 1340-1520, London, 2009, p. 108).
Nicolò Dolfin was born in Venice at the end of the 15th century, certainly after 1483, the year of the marriage of his parents, who belonged to an important patrician family of the city. Nicolò was initiated into a political career, but was able to deepen his studies of both Latin and vernacular culture. The first information we have about his public activities dates from 1502, when he and Andrea Foscolo were sent to Ferrara by the Republic of Venice to represent it at the wedding of Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso d'Este. In 1516 he was elected Count of Pula, but the following year he resigned for health reasons and was succeeded by his brother Fantino. His participation in the debates and initiatives that took place in Venice at that time concerning the development of vernacular literature is very significant. A contemporary of Pietro Bembo and Trifone Gabriele, Dolfin, according to various contemporary testimonies, must have been an important point of reference for those who, in those years, turned their scholarly attention to vernacular authors, especially Petrarch and Boccaccio. Giangiorgio Trissino, in his dialogue Castellano published in 1529, mentions his name among those who first discussed the issue of Petrarch's poetic language. The relationship with Pietro Bembo was not only one of shared literary interests, but must have been one of direct acquaintance. No further information about his life is known, except for a few references in a letter by Girolamo Muzio, who recalls that he as "a very good friend of Nicolò Delfino" introduced Dolfin to Giulio Camillo, who had expressed the desire to meet him, and in the Proemio to Le volgari opere del Petrarcha con la espositione di Alessandro Vellutello da Lucca (Venice, 1525), in which Vellutello himself recounts how Dolfin urged him to write a commentary also on Petrarch's Trionfi. Dolfin died in Venice in May 1528. He printed only one work, the edition of Boccaccio's Decameron published in Venice in 1516 for Gregorio de Gregori. The rest of his literary production remained in manuscript or was published after his death (S. Foà, Dolfin, Nicolò, in: "Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani", vol. 40, Rome, 1991, s.v.).
A. Bacchi della Lega, Serie delle edizioni delle opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, Bologna, 1875, p. 34; Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Centenario della morte di Giovanni Boccaccio. Mostra di manoscritti, documenti e edizioni, Certaldo, 1975, II, no. 48; Edit 16, CNCE6239; B. Gamba, Serie dei testi di lingua, Venice, 1839, no. 169; Daniels, Op. cit., p. 197. (Inventory #: 210)
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