Anonymous

Il bacio fauola pastorale. Rappresentata al Serenissimo Prencipe di Venetia. Marino Grimani. l’ultimo di Maggio 1601.

Venice, ‘Stampata per il Rampazetto’, 1601

quarto (213 × 152 mm), (12) ff. signed A¹², not paginated or foliated. Four-piece border of woodcut ornament on title-page enclosing woodcut insignia of Marino Grimani, two woodcut ornaments on folio A1 verso, woodcut of ‘Justice’ on folio A12 recto (verso blank).

provenance M. & L. Sordelli, exlibris and red inkstamp S (within a circle) in lower margin of title-page — Christie’s, ‘Libri, autografi e stampe’, Rome, 27 November 2002, lot 206

Three insignificant stains, otherwise in very good state of preservation.

binding old leather-backed boards.

The libretto of a pastoral entertainment with musical accompaniment staged in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. During Marino Grimani’s tenure as Doge (26 April 1595–25 December 1605), four such performances were presented each year, customarily on the feasts of Saint Mark, the Assumption, Saint Vitus, and Saint Stephen. The present performance was staged during Ascension Day celebrations.

Eight copies are known to the writer

● Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana ● Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Raccolta Dram­matica Corniani Algarotti, 5831 009¹ ● Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 8-RA5-1460 ● Paris, Biblio­thèque de l’Arsenal² ● Toronto, University, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, itp 01902³ ● Venice, Biblioteca d’Arte del Museo Civico Correr⁴ ● Venice, Biblio­teca nazionale Marciana, MISC 2620. 016 ● Vienna, Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, 40.E.90⁵

The work is not listed by Irene Alm, Catalog of Venetian librettos at the University of California Los Angeles (Berkeley 1993).

references Giovanni Salvioli and Carlo Salvioli, Bibliografia universale del teatro dramma­tico italiano (Venice 1903), col. 466; Angelo Solerti, ‘Le rappresentazioni musicali di Venezia dal 1571 al 1605’ in Rivista musicale italiana 9 (1902), p.539 no. 35; Primo catalogo collettivo delle biblioteche italiane,8 (Rome 1975), p.77; Claudio Sartori, I libretti italiani a stampa dalle origini al 1800 (Cuneo 1990), no. 3627; Florence Alazard, Art vocal, art de gouverner: la musique, le prince et la cité en Italie à la fin du xvie siècle (Paris 2002), p.349; Caterina Griffante, Le edizioni veneziane del Seicento. Cen­simento, A–L (Milan 2003), B–16