Progne

8vo. pp. [8], 9-68 [i.e. 66], [2] (last blank). Numbers 50-51 omitted in pagination. Signatures: A-D⁸ E². Bound with three other 16th- and 17th-century dramatic pieces (see below) in 18th-century treecalf, gilded spine, red morocco panel, green edges. Printer's device on title page. Plate of Wilmot Vaughan, 3rd Viscount Lisburne (ca. 1695-1766). Crossed signature on title page, “IV”, “299.” First line of title slightly shaved, a few running-headlines trimmed close.

First and only edition of an odd double-forgery. Corraro’s Senecan tragedy was an original play composed in Latin in about 1429, but unpublished until 1558, by Giovanni Ricci, as if classical. R. Sabbadini (Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne'secoli 14 e 15. Florence, 1905, I, 177) aptly compares it to Alberti’s Philodoxus. But three years after Ricci’s perhaps-unwitting accreditation and revival, the prolific poet, playwright, and admirer of Aretino, Lodovico Domenichi, translated it into Italian (as here) and unabashedly took full credit for it as his own work. The 1558 Latin version went on being reprinted as anonymous and ‘ancient’ until 1792, but it should not be assumed that Corraro himself meant to deceive, rather than imitate: the ‘real fraud’ was Domenichi (see Bib# 4102766/Fr# 223).

Bound before and after

• Progne are Pino da Cagli, L’Eunia, ragionamenti pastorali, novamente ritrovati Tra gli antichi giovanili componimenti di Messer Bernardino Pino da Cagli, All’Illustre, e Reverendo Signore Leonello Brancaleoni. Venice, Appresso Paolo Meietti, 1582
• Tomasso Buoni, Gli affetti giovenili, opera morale. Di Tomaso Buoni: Cittadino Lucchese: Academico Ronano. Nella quale si rappresenta il Dottorato: il Cavallierato & la Religione. Con sei intermedi apparenti: il Caos: la Natura: l'Arme: le Lettere: la Religione: L'Immortalità. Recitata nell'Illustre, & molto Magnifica Academia di Murano. A gli Illustri Signori presidenti della Magnifica Academia di Murano: Il Signor Alessandro Tasca: Il Signore Hieronimo Cabianca: il Sig. Piero Martinengo: & il Sig. Filippo Emanuele Fondatore Ottimo, & compagni. Venice, Appresso Gio. Battista Colosini, 1605
• Ernesto da Valvasone (trans.), Elettra Tragedia di Sofocle, Fatta volgare Dall'Illustre Signor Erasmo Delli Signori di Valvasone, Academico Vranico. Venice, Appresso i Guerra fratelli, 1588.

Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.