Aldine edition unknown to all known bibliographic repertoires and absent from EDIT16.
Extremely rare edition of Orlando Furioso, not yet listed in any repertoire and completely unknown to EDIT16. Unusual — and particularly significant — is the fact that what escapes bibliographic documentation is not a minor work, but rather the true best seller of the sixteenth century, printed in dozens of editions throughout the century. In the year 1549 alone, in Venice, at least five editions of the Furioso were recorded, printed by Giolito and other printers. None of these, however, presents typographical characteristics similar to those of the present copy, which stands out for its graphic layout, paratextual apparatus and editorial appearance.
Particularly noteworthy is the typographical choice — extremely unusual — of using both the Roman character and a small Gothic character, alternating in the body of the text. This solution, which required skill and a high level of complexity in the composition phase, is rarely documented in contemporary Venetian editions. The dedicatory letter to Trifone Gabriele is signed by Nicola Eugenico and is dated "last of April 1549".
The typographic attribution is confirmed by the intervention of Francesco Torresano, a key figure in Aldine typography, to whom the edition can therefore be fully ascribed. It should be noted that there is a similar edition printed in 1551 by Bartolomeo Imperadore and his son-in-law Francesco, also of exceptional rarity (known in only two copies), but characterised by a more ordinary typographic layout and less prototypical editorial choices than those adopted in the present copy. The frontispiece of the 1551 edition in fact adopts the usual woodcut frame, widely used in contemporary editions of the association and derived from Torresano models. On the other hand, the frontispiece of the present edition is composed with the woodcuts already in use by the Torresanos, as documented in Virgil, I sei primi libri dell'Eneide, published in Venice in 1544 by Federico Torresano. This element allows us to establish more precisely the identity of the Torresano signatory, who - following his marriage to the daughter of Bartolomeo Imperadore - signed himself in the following years as "Federico his son-in-law".
This is, to all intents and purposes, an Aldine edition (Torresano branch), second only to the very famous one of 1545 edited by Paolo Manuzio and also published in Venice.
The present copy therefore has an extraordinary historical and typographical importance in the context of Ariosto's editorial success in the Venetian context. The exceptional rarity of the edition is further documented by its total absence both in the Annali Ariostei edited by Agnelli and Revegnani (Bologna, Zanichelli, 1933), and in Renouard, which also recognizes and describes the editorial activity of Federico Torresano, but does not record this edition.
The specimen has been declared of particular cultural interest by the Superintendency for Book Heritage of Emilia-Romagna.