Orlando Furioso
ONE OF 100 QUARTO EXAMPLES, BOUND BY DERÔME
Four volumes. Birmingham: John Baskerville for P. and G. Molini, 1773. First Baskerville edition, quarto format.
Quarto (11 1/2” x 8 15/16”, 292mm x 227mm).
Vol. I: binder’s blank, π4(–π1) a-g4 χ1, A-Yy4 Zz2 (Zz2 blank), binder’s blank [$2 signed]. 214 leaves, pp. [6] (title, blank, 2pp. dedication, to the reader, blank), i ii-lviii (52pp. Barotti’s life of Ariosto, 5pp. Ruscelli preface, Ariosto’s letter to Leo X), 1 2-362, 2 blanks. With an engraved portrait frontispiece and 12 engraved plates.
Vol. II: binder’s blank, π1 A-Kkk4 Lll2(–Lll2), binder’s blank [$2 signed; D2 mis-signed “D”]. 226 leaves, pp. [2] (title, blank), 1 2-450. With 11 engraved plates.
Vol. III: binder’s blank, π1 A-Kkk4 (Kkk4 blank), binder’s blank [$2 signed]. 225 leaves, pp. [2] (title, blank), 1 2-446, 2 blanks. With 12 engraved plates.
Vol. IV: binder’s blank, π1 A-Hhh4 2Ff-Gg4 (2Gg4 blank) *4 ***4 ****4 2*2, binder’s blank [$2 signed; G2 signed “*D2”, Qq signed “*Qq”, *2 signed “**”, ***2 signed “****”]. 239 leaves, pp. [2] (title, blank), 1 2-446, 2 blanks, [28] (11pp. London subscribers, 6pp. Paris subscribers, international subscribers, 8pp. Italy subscribers, 2pp. errata). [=ii, 448, xxviii] With 10 engraved plates.
With an engraved portrait frontispiece and 45 engraved plates.
Bound in contemporary (1780) red morocco by Derôme (signed and dated in ink manuscript to the verso of the front binder’s blank of vol. I). On the boards, a triple fillet border with corner rosettes gilt. On the spine, fie raised bands with a gilt roll. In the panels, a central gilt rosette with a double gilt fillet border with additional dashed rolls left-and-right. Title gilt to the second panel, number gilt to the third, publisher gilt to the sixth panel. Dashed gilt roll to the head- and tail-pieces. Double gilt fillet to the edges of the boards. Gilt inside dentelle. Marbled end-papers. All edges of the text-block gilt. Celadon silk marking-ribbons.
An altogether unsophisticated set, near fine. Scattered scuffs and bumps, with a split to the tail of vol II. Some rubbing and little patches of wear at the lower edges. Repaired tear to IV.Tt. Tanning evenly throughout, with scattered passages moderately so.
Ludovico Ariosto (throughout “Lodovico,” 1474–1533) was the great humanist Renaissance poet. His verses — Orlando Furioso being his most famous — characterize the emergence from the feudal-medieval mindset through the use of satire. Raging Orlando (Orlando being the Italian for Roland, the Frankish general memorialized in the Chanson) is a sequel to Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato (Orlando In Love), and the two follow a well-worn dramatic path. Orlando’s love for Angelica finds its end in the beginning of Furioso when she runs off with a wounded Saracen; it gives way to his rage and lust for revenge. Throughout, Ariosto satirizes the old-fashioned Paladin, making Furioso the basis for a great deal of humorous verse from Cervantes to Lord Byron and well beyond.
Indeed, Orlando Furioso’s perennial appeal accounts for the production of this edition, which is one of the pinnacles of XVIIIc book-making. John Baskerville (here G. for Giovanni, 1706–1775) was the great British printer-typographer, and innovator of wove paper. He printed a series of great poetical works — Vergil, Milton, the Bible — that rank among the great books ever published. Whereas those works of literature are in languages known to his clientele in England, Orlando Furioso shows the widening horizons of the market for English books as well as for the cultivation of the bibliophile, now expected to work his way through Ariosto’s antiquated and poetic Italian.
The twenty-six-page subscribers list is as impressive (kings and queens, archdukes and archduchesses, archbishops, the elector and electress Palatine) as it is geographically broad. As Grand Tour culture reached its climax in the XVIIIc, a great many wealthy youths will have spent time in Italy, and brought home with them a thirst for Italian literature. The publisher-bookseller Molini brothers commissioned the first rank of European artists and engravers to adorn the set: Ariosto’s portrait was drawn by Eisen after Titian and engraved by Fiquet; besides that are plates by Bartolozzi, Duclos, Moreau le jeune, Cochin and others.[1] Dibdin wrote of the edition:
I never see, or even think of, the lovely edition of Baskerville, of 1773 … without the most unmixed satisfaction. Paper, printing, drawing, plates—all delight the eye, and gratify the heart, of the thorough-bred bibliomaniacal Virtuoso. This edition has hardly its equal, and certainly not its superior, in any publication with which I am acquainted.
The edition was issued principally in octavo, as the narrow text will attest. Baskerville re-imposed the same type — changing the quire signatures — as quartos, yielding 100 (Cohen-de Ricci ad loc.) de luxe sets, of which ours is one. Beyond the fine poetry, the fine printing and the fine engraving, the present set can boast of its fine binding. Cohen-de Ricci explains that “un certain nombre d’examplaires” (of quartos only?) were sent to Derôme (Nicolas-Denis, “le jeune,” 1731–1790) in Paris to be bound. (Derôme was a celebrated binder in the years leading up to the Revolution, renowned for his fine dentelles.) This was the lucky fate of the present set — or at least it boasts to be — and the purchaser records the stunning cost: 500 francs. These Derôme bindings of the Baskerville Orlando Furioso are among the most traditionally desirable books among bibliophiles.
Brunet I.438; Cohen-de Ricci 95; ESTC T133620; Gaskell, Baskerville 48(b); Ray, French 64.
[1] One amusing point of the engravings is the following story: “The engraver Bartolozzi grew weary of the delays of the publisher of these beautiful volumes, who one day in a passion called him an ass, a poltroon, an animal. The artist made no reply; he was working at the moment on the plate of the 43d Chant; without turning from his task, he lightly traced these three words upon the tomb which was engraved upon that plate,—d’asino, de poltrone, d’animale” (Benton’s John Baskerville). The words can be seen in the present copy, whereas in some examples they are worn or rubbed out, indicating that ours was an early set off the press.
Item #JLR0314
Price: $22,000