Pontano (Giovanni Gioviano)

Opera, occasional spotting and dustoiling, especially to first half of the volume, marginalia, including ‘maniculae’ in a contemporary hand, ownership inscription in Italian to front pastedown dated 1817 and partly reading ‘Regalato questo libro a me Raimondo Masi…”, later carta ‘rustica’, new endpapers, ink title to spine, soiled, [Brunet IV, 808; not in Adams], folio, Giovanni Rosso & Bernardino Vercellese, 1512.

*** Uncommon edition of the Vercellese printer, comprising ‘De fortitudine’; ‘De Principe’; ‘Dialogus qui Charon inscribitur’; ‘Dialogus qui Antonius inscribitur’; ‘De libreralitate’; ‘De Benificentia’; ‘De magnificentia’; ‘De Splendore’; ‘De Conviventia’; ‘De Obedientia’. Also includes the famous ‘Charon’ dialogue that was censored in many of the copies of the Alden edition of the works of 1518-19. Alongside Poliziano, Pontano (1429-1503) is considered the greatest poet of Italian humanism. He was a humanist, diplomat, scholar and poet who became the driving force behind the Neapolitan Academy and its official leader after 1471, as well as Naples’ Secretary of State. His was considered by contemporaries as good as, or superior to, his Classical models.