IL GOFFREDO, OVVERO GERUSALEMME LIBERATA DI TORQUATO TASSO. Nuova Edizione Arricchita Di Figure in Rame, Ed’annotazioni Colla Vita Dell’Autore.

2 volumes. First Groppo Edition. Superbly illustrated with very fine engravings throughout including a very finely engraved full-page frontispiece by Novelli, a beautifully engraved title page in red and black, with finely engraved vignettes and head and tail pieces throughout, a very fine full page engraving of the author by Agostino Caracci, and with 20 very beautifully executed full page engravings by J. Leonardus from the designs of Bernardo Castello from 1617. The “Argomentos” all with elaborate engraved and intricate borders, the first large multi-line initial of each canto finely historiated with engraved figures, and additionally, 94 fine and large engravings are included within the text after designs by Novelli and executed for the edition by Leonardus. 4to, in fine full antique vellum over stiff boards with yap edges and marbled endpapers, the spines with a brick-red morocco title labels gilt lettered and decorated and a smaller brown morocco volume labels also gilt decorated and lettered. An Oates Family copy with engraved armorial plates of William Edward, Edward and Robert Washington Oates, founders of the Oates Museum and the Oates Collection at University of Southampton. (2), XXX, 364; XII, 360. A wonderful set in exemplary condition, extremely fresh and clean, the paper unpressed and the impression is bold, dark and fine.

Edizione: a rare, important and very beautiful edition of this classic of italian literature. the edition has long been considered one of the richest and most magnificent of the many editions of tasso printed over the centuries.<br> poet, prose writer and literary theorist, tasso was successor to and deviator from the tradition of boiardo and ariosto, he gave to the court of ferrara the third of the great ottava rima epic romances celebrating the este ancestry, gerusalemme liberata, and the purest example of renaissance pastoral drama, aminta. even before its end, his life became a legend of poetic madness and wandering. born in sorrento, he shared the political exile of his father, bernardo, and began his literary studies and his long experience of italian courts in urbino. he attended the universities of padua and of bologna, at 18 published rinaldo, a chivalric poem in 12 cantos, and in 1565 took service with cardinal luigi d'este. <br> although he completed the liberata in 1575, tasso was never to be satisfied with it in relation to neo-aristotelian canons of epic poetry or to counter-reformation religious orthodoxy, and restlessly he consulted scholars on one score and ecclesiastical inquisitors on the other. in 1577 he was imprisoned for a paranoid display of violence in the presence of lucrezia d'este. he escaped to the south but, following another outburst on his return to ferrara in 1579, was shut up in the hospital of s. anna, to remain there until 1586. the liberata was finally published in 1581, but tasso continued to regard the poem as unfinished while it circulated in several editions from that year on. released from s. anna, he went to mantua under the protection of duke vincenzo gonzaga, and thence into a ceaseless vagabondage that took him to genoa, rome, naples and florence. he received hospitality from religious orders and academies, from the medici, from the marquis giambattista manso, and from pope clement viii and his nephew, to whom tasso dedicated the only authorized version of his epic, much reworked and retitled.