Il Petrarca con l'Espositione d' Allessandro Vellutello. Di nuovo ristampato con le figure ai Trionfi, con le Apostille, e con piu cose utili aggiunte.

Venezia, (Venice, Italy) Vincenzo Valgrissi, 1560. Hardback, approx 8 x 6 inches. Vellum boards with gilt line panels, later leather to spine with raised banding and maroon leather spine label. Red page edges, plain endpapers. In very good condition. Professionally rebacked on spine with later leather and spine label, and later endpapers. Boards darkened, corners bumped. Inscription to prelim “G. Frere, to his dear sister Susanna, Oct. 1805.” Some minor darkening to title page, faint water stain to top inner corner of pages, disappears about 1/4 way through.Chip/tears to bottom inside corners of pages at rear p208 - end (does not affect text.) Else a very good clean and tight copy. xii + 214pp + 5pp Index. Illustrated with a decorative engraved title page, decorative chapter headers and pictorial letterpieces. One clipped illustration pasted to one page in intro/dedication (M. Lavra.) Illustration to last page of cross & serpent design. “Alessandro Vellutello’s Commentary, Il Petrarca con l'espositione di M. Alessandro Velutello, was first published in 1525 and was more successful than the other Cinquecento’s commentaries. It was reprinted 26 times until the end of the century. Vellutello’s was not a professional letterato as he admits; however, his commentary has unprecedented humanist qualities as he quotes the Latin sources of Petrarch, from Vergil to Horace, from Propertius to Ovid, from Cicero to Plinius. Furthermore, his commentary includes accurate references to the Bible and the Provençal poets. Vellutello’s commentary is extremely original as it completely changes the original numbering that Petrarch gave to his poems based on biographical and geographical considerations. He wanted to recreate the identity and life of Francesco and Laura. To this goal he wrote three important introductory essays explaining his new approach to Petrarch’s Rvf. The first essay declares the new order that he gave to the poems, Trattato de l’ordine de’ sonetti e canzoni mutato; the second is a short biography of Petrarch, Vita e costumi del poeta; finally the third essay reconstructs Laura identity, l’Origine di madonna Laura con la discrizione di Valclusa e del luogo ove il poeta di lei a principio s’innamorò.” (https://petrarch.uoregon.edu/apparatus/commentary/14670)