Lettere del signor cavaliere Battista Guarini nobile ferrarese [...] Da Agostino Michele raccolte et al serenissimo signore il sig. Duca d'Urbino dedicate con il privilegio

[Bound with:] LEONI, Giovanni Battista (1553-1609). Delle lettere familiari [...] parte prima [-seconda]. Con due sermoni spirituali et tre orationi del medesimo autore], di nuovo ristampate et ricorrete [sic]. Venezia, Giovanni Battista Ciotti, 1593.[together with:] IDEM. Oratione[…]nella revalescenza dell'illustrissimo et reverendissimo monsignore Gioanni Grimani Patriarca di Aquileia. Venice, Giovanni Battista Ciotti, 1593.

Two works in one volume (216x151 mm). Guarini: [12], 224 pp. Collation: a⁴ b² A-Ee⁴. Printer's device on title page. Leoni (three parts): [4], 95, [1]; [4], 56; [7] leaves. Collation: a⁴ A-M⁸ (M8 is a blank); a⁴ A-O⁴; a-b⁴ (lacking b4, a blank). Printer's devices on the three title pages. Woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. Contemporary vellum (soiled and rubbed). Paper loss to the outer upper corner of the first four leaves with no loss of text, water stain to the upper margin at the beginning and at the end of the volume, worm track on the outer margin of a few leaves not affecting the text at the beginning of the second work, some browning.

I. Second edition, appeared one year after the first and bearing the same dedication by the editor Agostino Michele to Francesco Maria II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino (dated Venice, September 20, 1593).

“La prima edizione delle Lettere del Guarini, curata da quel letterato di Venezia Agostino Michele di cui Ciotti aveva già pubblicato nel 1592 un Discorso in cui, contra l'opinione di tutti i più illustri scrittori dell'arte poetica, chiaramente si dimostra, come si possono scrivere con molta lode le comedie e le tragedie in prosa, fu pubblicata dal Ciotti nel 1593, con altre edizioni nel 1594, 1595, 1596, 1598, 1600, 1603, 1606 e 1615. Ciotti aveva il monopolio delle Lettere come anche delle Rime” (D.E. Rhodes, Guarini e l'editore Giovanni Battista Ciotti, in: “Rime e lettere di Battista Guarini. Atti del Convegno di Studi Padova, 5-6 Dicembre 2003”, B.M. Da Rif, ed., Alessandria, 2008, p. 339). The collection contains 158 letters dating from June 1565 to August 1593 (nine of which are by other authors: seven are addressed to Guarini and two to other recipients).

II. First edition of part one and two of Leoni's letters. The first part had appeared alone in 1592. A third part was published alone in 1596. All three parts were first printed together by Giovanni Battista Ciotti in 1600. The first part is dedicated by the author to Pietro Priuli, the second to Paolo, Nicolò, Girolamo, and Sebastiano Contarini.

The first and the second book contain respectively 145 and 48 letters, two of which are addressed to Leoni. The letters are grouped in alphabetical order by the recipient's first name or honorary title and then, for every recipient, in chronological order. The main recipients are Giovanni Mocenigo (38 letters), Girolamo Zeno (26), Giovanni Francesco Secchi (21), and Antonio Calbo (18). The letters are almost all dated between 1571 and 1591.

“Dans l'une comme dans l'autre partie, chaque lettre n'a généralement pas moins d'une page et n'aborde qu'un sujet. Les nouvelles familières personelles (santé, carrière, voyages, souvenirs de jeunesse, amitiés) et les compliments (congratulations, recommandations, consolations) traités assez brièvement alternent avec des thèmes développés en plusieurs pages (la lecture des livres d'Histoire, l'écriture comparé à la parole, les fontaines, l'historique des années saintes, la Fortune, le secrétaire, les aventures burlesques au cours d'un voyage, les peintres, le ‘traslato', la peste à Venise, etc.). Ces lettres s'inscrivent dans une tradition; Leoni se réfère une fois à A. Caro. Son style est caracterisé par une familiarité souriante, un langage image […] mêlé à du latin, par une ou deux comparaisons filées” (J. Basso, Le genre épistolaire en langue italienne (1538-1662). Répertoire chronologique et analytique, Roma & Nancy, 1990, p. 328).

Edit 16, CNCE21966 and CNCE24201.

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