Ezra Pound's Cavalcanti Poems

[Verona]: A New Directions Book [Printed by the Officina Bodoni], 1966. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Quarto size, 108 pp., signed by Ezra Pound, no. 78 of 200 copies. Guido Cavalcanti (ca. 1255 - 1300) is regarded as the first major poet of Italian literatue and was the best friend of Dante Alighieri; he was a character in Boccaccio's Decameron, and influenced writers as recently as 1861 with Dante Gabriel Rossetti - from there he had an influence on Ezra Pound, an admirer of Rossetti.

In 1912 Pound first published his translations of Cavalcanti's work, with another publication in 1932. Pound's main focus was on Cavalcanti's philosophy of love and light, and this focus had a further influence on Pound's friend and fellow modernist T.S. Eliot. (N.B., above information from Wikipedia.) This edition of 1966, exquisitely printed by the Officina Bodoni, includes Pound's translations with two pages of Notes at the end, the Introduction to the Edition of 1912, and two essays entitled "Mediaevalism" and "The Other Dimension", with an Index at the rear.

___DESCRIPTION: Quarter vellum with yellow Roma paper sides, the initials "EP" in outline in gilt on the front, gilt lettering on the spine, title page in rust and black, printed in Dante type on Pescia paper, quarto size (approximately 11.25" tall), pagination: (1)-106, blank, colophon with printer's device in red, signature of Ezra Pound above the limitation statement; limited edition of 190 copies on paper, this no. 78 (plus 10 on Japanese paper). Original clear glassine wrap present, encased on a grey cardboard slipcase with a paper label on the front.

___CONDITION: Fine, with a strong, square text block, solid hinges, perfectly straight corners with no rubbing, the interior is clean and bright, and it is entirely free of prior owner markings; the original glassine wrap is also fine, as is the slipcase.

___CITATION: Mardersteig no. 144.

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