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BONARELLI Guidubaldo.
Filli di Sciro, fauola pastorale.....
np. np. nd. [Ferrara, Impresa dell'Accademia degli Intrepidi di Ferrara, 1607]
£1950.00
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FIRST EDITION. 4to. pp. [xvi], 1-142, [ii], 143-179, [iii] last blank. Italic letter, some Roman. Historiated woodcut initials, typographical headpieces, woodcut tailpieces, superb engraved title border of eight putti with the arms of the dedicatee the Duc d'Urbino crowned above and printing press below and five full-page engravings by F Valegio illustrating text. Bookplate of Allardyce Nicoll on pastedown, autograph of W. W Greg 1925 on fly. Tiny worm trail restored at gutter of t-p just touching edge of engraving. A very good copy, clean and crisp, with excellent impression of the engravings, in contemporary vellum, cloth reback. Rare first edition of this important and beautifully illustrated pastoral play in blank verse, one of the high-points of Italian drama that helped to define the pastoral mode. This quasi-elegiac tragicomedy was first performed in 1605 in the new ducal theater at Ferrara and in 1607 it was published under the auspices of the Academy of Intrepid Spirits (Accademia degli Intrepidi). It is a masterpiece of word-play, wit, wonderfully flowing verses, gentle musicality, parody and irony. It was also groundbreaking for its moral and psychological portrayal of a character seized by a furious double passion — one of them incestuous. Bonarelli was forced to defend his work in his Discorsi, published in 1612, in which he boldly claimed for poetry the right to treat life, love, death, furor and ardor in their full complexity rather than as perfect ideals. The work was an enormous success, was translated into most European languages and often reprinted in the next two hundred years. Bonarelli's 'Filli di Sciro' "for two centuries constituted an inseparable triad with Tasso's Aminta and Guarino's Pastor Fido. The long, total oblivion of Guidubaldo Bonarelli's name.... has resulted in an absolute ignorance of an important playwright and a still valid pastoral play. As a poet, Guidubaldo Bonarelli was a worthy rival of both Tasso and Guarino, and, as a dramatist, he enriched Italian literature with a play that, next to Aminta and Pastor Fido, even today reveals its force and beauty." Joseph Tusiani. Bonarelli was close to both Tasso and Guarini from the time he spent in Ferarra where he was one of the founders of the Accademia. One of the reasons for the present obscurity of the work is Bonarelli's device of a dual plot so intricate that it is difficult to unravel. Bonarelli was born in Pesaro on Christmas 1563 and was the brother of the tragidian Prospero Bonarelli. He entered the service of Cardinal Francesco Borromeo and then of the Este but a series of intrigues led to his dismissal. He took up writing in earnest around 1601. This first edition is particularly rare with only five copies in Italian libraries.
Not in BM STC C17 It. Gamba 1809 (Baldini edition of 1607) "le pastorali piu celebri, e molte ristampe fattene anche fuori d'Italia comprovano la stima in che e salita". Fontanini p. 456.
L1054.
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