La Gerusalemme Liberata; Di Torquato Tasso Figurata da Bernardo Castello con le annotationi di Scipion Gentili, e di Giulio Guastavini e li argomenti di Oratio Ariosti

Genova: Giuseppe Pavoni, 1617. Very good. Agostino Carracci and Giacomo Franco after Bernardo Castello. Folio, 11 3/4 x 7 7/8 in (297 x 197 mm); xvi + 255 +72 (notes) + 36 (places and allegory) + vi (index of names). 2 engraved titles, 20 full-page engraved illustrations set within architectural frames located at the beginning of each Canto. Two of the illustrations were printed separately and neatly laid down within the architectural frame, as illustrated in our photo no. 5. Each book also features the subject of the canto ('Argomento') within a woodcut decorative cartouche, as well woodcut head-pieces and historiated initials. Printed on hand-made laid paper; offset on verso and facing page of full-page engravings, occasional staining within text, marginal water-staining. Contemporary speckled brown calf, sympathetically rebacked, covers rubbed, 6 raised bands with gilt decorations in compartment, gilt titling on red morocco label; all edges stained red.

[Cicognara, 1113; Gamba, 948; Brunet IV, 398]. This handsome folio edition of Torquato Tasso's masterpiece features 2 engraved allegorical titles, one with medallion portrait of the author with a view of Genoa harbor in the background, the other with portrait of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy with the gods Mars (war) and Pallas (Athena, goddess of wisdom and strategy) and to whom this edition is dedicated. Each of the 20 cantos sets out with an elaborate engraving by Agostino Carracci and Giacomo Franco after Bernardo Castello, depicting a grouping of characters, battle scenes, city views, etc. pertaining to the subject of that book. The scenes are framed by decorative architectural motifs, featuring putti, caryatids, festoons, and masks; chapter titles are surrounded by cartouches bearing the subject matter of the Canto, as well as headers and historiated capital letters.

'Jerusalem Delivered' is an epic poem, first published in 1581, that tells a largely mythified version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights battle Muslims to take Jerusalem. Tasso's choice of subject matter had a topical resonance to readers of the period when the Ottoman Empire was advancing through Eastern Europe. Tasso began work on the poem in the mid-1560's and considered it completed in 1575 when he read his work to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara and Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino. A pirate edition of 14 cantos from the poem appeared in Venice in 1580. When the first complete editions of Gerusalemme Liberata were published in Parma and Ferrara in 1581, they were an instant success and more editions, many illustrated, followed in the next decades. The work was translated and diffused throughout Europe; sections or moments from the story were used in works in other media all over Europe, providing stories that combined love, violence, and an exotic setting.