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Aristodemo after he has slain his daughter Merope, and before falling on his sword. Anonymous engraving (163 × 117 mm, platemark) View larger
Aristodemo after he has slain his daughter Merope, and before falling on his sword. Anonymous engraving (163 × 117 mm, platemark)
Dottori (Carlo de’), Conte, 1618-1686

Aristodemo. Tragedia di Carlo de’ Dottori. All’altezza Ser.ma del Signor Principe Leopoldo di Toscana

Padua, Matteo Cadorino, 1657
First edition of this five-act verse drama (with a chorus following Act IV), the “acknowledged masterpiece of Seicento tragedy” (Cambridge History of Italian Literature), first performed on 31 May 1655, by twelve Paduan gentlemen with Sertorio Orsato taking the role of Aristodemo. The play was afterwards revised for publication by the author, who incorporated advice tendered by several friends. This first edition is scarce: no copy is listed in the printed catalogues of Italian plays in the Folger Library, universities of Chicago, Illinois, Toronto, or Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome.

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Subjects
Literature, Italian - Drama - Early works to 1800
Authors/Creators
Dottori, Carlo de', Conte, 1618-1686
Printers/Publishers
Cadorino (Cadorin), Matteo, active 1645?-1683?

Dottori, Carlo de’, conte
Padua 1618 – 1686 Padua

Aristodemo. Tragedia di Carlo de’ Dottori. All’altezza Ser.ma del Signor Principe Leopoldo di Toscana.

Padua, Matteo Cadorino, 1657

quarto (220 × 160 mm), (82) ff. signed §6 A–T4 and paginated (12) 1–144 (8), including en­graved title-page (imposed on folio §1 recto) lettered Aristodemo tragedia In Padoua p[resso] Mattio Cadorino 1657. Printer’s device on letterpress title-page.

provenance M. and L. Sordelli, exlibris and the same owners’ red inkstamp S (within a cir­cle) in lower margin of letterpress title-page — Christie’s, ‘Libri, autografi e stampe’, Rome, 27 November 2002, lot 204

A good, tall copy (uncut and last quire unopened).

binding nineteenth-century Italian leather-backed boards.

First edition of this five-act verse drama (with a chorus following Act iv), the ‘acknowledged master­piece of Seicento tragedy’,1 first performed on 31 May 1655, by twelve Paduan gentlemen with Sertorio Orsato taking the role of Aristodemo. The play was after­wards revised for publication by the author, who incorporated advice tendered by several friends.2 Since its rediscovery by Benedetto Croce the play has received constant scholarly attention.3

Image
Aristodemo after he has slain his daughter Merope, and before falling on his sword.
Anonymous engraving (reduced from 163 × 117 mm, platemark)

This first edition is scarce: no copy is listed in the printed catalogues of Italian plays in the Folger Library, universities of Chicago, Illinois, Toronto, or Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome. These copies are known to the writer:

● Berkeley, University of California, Bancroft Library, PQ4621.D7 A75 1657 ● Florence, Biblioteca nazionale centrale, Fondo Magliabechiano, 3.2.135 ● Florence, Biblioteca nazionale centrale, Biblioteca Palatina, 12.7.5.2 ● London, British Library, 1489.a.42 ● Milan, Biblioteca nazionale Braidense, Racc. Dram. 5453 ● Naples, Fondazione Bibliotheca Benedetto Croce4 ● New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, 2001 498 and Italian Festivals 62 (two copies) ● Padua, Biblioteca del Seminario maggiore ● Paris, Bibliotheque de l’Arsenal5 ● Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 8-RE-3875 ● Turin, Biblioteca centrale della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia dell’ Università degli studi, Coll T 105 ● Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Stamp. Ferr. V. 5284 ● Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, Dramm. 1643. 003 and Dramm. 006 (two copies)6

references Giovanni Salvioli and Carlo Salvioli, Bibliografia universale del teatro dramma­tico italiano (Venice 1894), col. 356; Natale Busetto, Carlo de’ Dottori, letterato padovano del secolo decimosettimo. Studio biografico-letterario (Città di Castello 1902), p.383 (‘Notizia dei manoscritti e dellé stampe delle opere edite e inedite di Carlo Dottori’); Lione Allacci, Dram­maturgia (reprint Turin 1961), 110; Libreria Vinciana, Autori italiani del ’ 600 (Milan 1948–1951), no. 3890

1. Peter Brand, The Cambridge History of Italian Literature (Cambridge 1999), pp.331–332.

2. Antonio Daniele, Carlo de’ Dottori. Lingua, cultura e aned­doti (Padua 1986), pp.130–154; Alberto Bentoglio, ‘Un inedito padovano del Seicento: lo scenario per l’ “Aristodemo” di Carlo de’ Dottori con gli intermedi musicale de “La Cidippe”’ in Medioevo e rinascimento 6 (1992), pp.251–274.

3. Benedetto Croce, Storia dell’età barocca in Italia (Bari 1929), pp.248–253; and his critical edition (Florence 1948). Giovanna Da Pozzo, ‘Rassegna di studi su Carlo de’ Dottori 1985–1990’ in Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana 109 (1992), pp.95–127.

4. Dora Beth Marra, La biblioteca di Benedetto Croce: le note autografe ai libri, Edizione nazionale delle opere di Benedetto Croce (Naples 1994), i, pp.191–192.

5. Suzanne Michel and Paul-Henri Michel, Répertoire des ouvrages imprimés en langue italienne au xviie siècle conservés dans les bibliothèques de France (Paris 1975), ii, p.184.

6. Louise G. Clubb, Italian drama in Shakespeare’s time (New Haven 1989), pp.230–247 (reproducing engraved title-page of Dramm. 006).

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