Giovanni Boccaccio - Decamerone - 1538

"This is the very rare first edition of the Decameron with the corrections of Brucioli" Bacchi della Lega, p. 38. "Rare and priced edition, like all the Decameron printed in the first half of the sixteenth century, the first with the corrections of Brucioli. »; See Bongi, p. 6: Gamba, 174. ” A sixteenth-century edition published by Gioliti, complete. Dedicated by Brucioli (who in those years had taken refuge in Venice to escape the condemnation of heresy) , to "Alvisia Conzaga Palavisina, Marchesana di Gonzaga". Text in italics; with woodcut portrait of the author in an oval on the title page; on the back of the last sheet a beautiful large vignette, also woodcut, which shows a putto leaning against a tree trunk. Half parchment paper binding, coloured panels. Pp. : [20] , 548, browning, stains and woodworms that do not affect the text. Reinforcements on sheets 17-25, woodcut portrait of Boccaccio within an oval medallion on the title page and large allegorical figure on the back of the last sheet, with integration at the top edge, also engraved in wood. Bongi I, 6: «Rare and priced edition, like all the Decameron printed in the first half of the sixteenth century [. . .] the first with the corrections of Brucioli. »; Gamba, 174. Boccaccio (1313 – 1375) wrote the Decameron, which he probably completed in 1351, during the terrible plague in Florence. The work will be the narrative basis of Western novels. Boccaccio's masterpiece, whose subtitle is "Il Principe Galeotto" - see colophon - to indicate the function that the book will have as an intermediary between lovers and whose title was taken from the treatise ‘Exameron’ by St. Ambrogio, tells of a group of young people (seven girls and three boys) who, during the plague epidemic of 1348, met in the church of Santa Maria Novella and decided to take refuge on the hills near Florence. For two weeks the "honest brigade" entertains itself serenely with various pastimes, in particular telling stories in turn, collected in a frame where several narrative planes are intertwined: this allows Boccaccio to intervene critically on the themes of various erotic stories that already circulated freely. Full title and authors: Il Decamerone di Messer Giovanni Boccaccio, nuovamente stampato e ricorretto per Antonio Brucioli con la dichiaratione di tutti i Vocaboli, Detti, Proverbj, Figure, et modi di dire incogniti et difficili, che sono in esso Libro. Stampato in Venetia ad instantia di M. Giovanni Giolito da Trino, 1538 Giovanni Boccaccio [Antonio Brucioli] .