CAVICEO (Giacomo). - Lot 20

CAVICEO (Giacomo). Libro del Peregrino novame(n)te Impresso e redutto alla sua sincerita con la vita dello Auctore. Venice: Manfredo Bonelli, March 20, 1516. - In-4, 210x153: (160 ff., last blank) [sig. A8 B4 C-V8 X4]. Havana calf, fillet and cold-rolled border on boards, ornate spine, cold-rolled interior, gilt edges (19th century binding). Very rare sixth edition of this moral novel by the Italian humanist and poet Giacomo Caviceo (1443-1511). "Il Libro del Peregrino is an atypical work of prose narrative. The only composition in the vernacular by the chaotic ecclesiastic Giacomo Caviceo, this first-person narrative recounts Peregrino's thwarted love affair with Genevra, whose rocky adventures and wanderings undoubtedly bear witness to the real-life adventures of their author. Written in the last decade of the 15th century, the work was published in Parma in 1508, then posthumously in 1513: proof of its success, it went through a total of twenty-one editions until 1559, mainly in Venice and Milan, and gave rise to several imitations" (Mathilde Thorel, La Première réception du Peregrin en France, in: Réforme, Humanisme, Renaissance, n°75, 2012, p. 88). The edition includes a handsome woodcut frame on the title. It opens with a preface addressed to Lucretia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, followed by a biography of the author by the neo-Latin poet and philologist Giorgio Anselmo (1459?-1528), which first appeared in the second edition of 1513. A fine copy in 19th-century binding. In the lower margin of the C6 verso leaf, there are ancient arms drawn in ink (slightly cut by the binder). Some wear to spine. Provenance: unidentified arms drawn on verso of folio C6. - La Rive family (Switzerland), with bookplate.