Almost miniature, 1592 Petrarch's Il Canzoniere and Triumphs titled Il Petrarca di Nuovo Ristampato

Note: text block loose in binding.

A scarce (see notes on copies held below) Venetian-printed 16th-century, pocket-sized Petrarch edition, notable for its small woodcuts; two Petrarch poetry works (and a biography) are printed in this edition, Il Canzoniere and his Triumphs.

Il Canzoniere is a collection of poetry written to Laura, Petrarch's idealized love (whom he admired from afar). The work is split into two parts, the first section he wrote while he claimed she was living, and the second, from after her death. The work begins with an illustration of Petrarch and Laura.

Petrarch's Triumphs is also poetry, written from the point-of-view of someone enjoying a Roman ceremony of triumph, with each of it's six triumphs representing allegorical triumphs (love, chastity, death, fame, time, eternity). Each of these six triumphs has a small woodcut representation at the beginning of the triumph.

Bibliographic Details -

Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) number 847914, 5 copies recorded in the world's libraries - 3 in Italy, 1 in France and 1 in Poland.

Worldcat OCLC catalogue number 802015787, again the Polish copy. Worldcat 644262155 adds a University of Manchester Library copy.

Brunet makes mention of this copy, but doesn't specifically catalogue it. On column 553 (volume 4, 1863) he states that the Porro edition of 1600 is a copy, retaining the 1592 at the colophon.

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 10 x 5 x 2 cm. Gatherings signed in 12. All edges washed with a blue, including the vellum binding. Printer’s mark and a frame to title page. Illustrations and decorative headers.

Pages – 1-162recto, 162 verso and then non-paginated (O7-O12recto) “Tavola”, last verso blank

Collation – A-O12

Condition -

See pictures. Some wear to binding. Text block loose in binding (no endpapers or pastedowns extant).

Title page and last page worn and darkened. 1st ten leaves corners worn. Some chipping to title page edge, ink ribbon after year. Text block with some toning throughout, more towards ends; occasional ink annotations, dog-eared pages, page edge chips, thumb, ink spot, etc. Occasional moisture mark from edges, possibly caused by the (ink?) wash applied to the block edges.