Bembo, Pietro

Description

Bembo, Pietro. Rime di Monsignor P. Bembo. 

In Vinetia: [Giovanni Andrea Valvassori], MDXXXXIIII [1544]. 163 x 106 mm (6.5 x 4.5 in). Octavo. 48, [10] ll. In Italian. Title within an architectural border. Printer’s device on verso of final leaf.

Bound in speckled leather; gilt ornament tooled edges and spine and red leather spine label with gilt title; all edges stained. 

Very good plus with light wear to boards and corners lightly bumped. Overall crisp & clean. A very nice copy. 

A later—but scarce—edition of amorous poetry by the Italian humanist scholar, linguist, and cardinal Pietro Bembo. First published in 1530, the book was an illustration of Bembo’s belief in the superiority of Florentine Tuscan, on which standard Italian is based, above all other dialects then spoken in Italy.

Born in Venice in 1470 to an elite family, Bembo’s first encounter with Tuscan was through his father, the Venetian ambassador to Florence, where Bembo lived for a time. Bembo was a student of Greek and philosophy at universities in Ferrara, Messina, and Padua, and traveled throughout Italy, befriending various political and literary figures along the way, including Ludovico Ariosto. Bembo’s De Aetna, an account of an ascension of Mt. Aetna by Bembo and his father, Bernardo, was published by their friend Aldus Manutius in 1496. Manutius commissioned a special typeface for the edition. This was Stanley Morison’s inspiration for a revival, aptly named Bembo, in 1928 and was re-released as a digital typeface in 2008 by Adobe. Erasmus wrote that a coin Bembo once showed Manutius inspired the latter’s motto, “festina lente,” and famous anchor and dolphin device.

An illustration of the beauty of vernacular language. Bembo was more interested in literary and intellectual pursuits than politics and civil service. Bembo edited the 1501 Aldine editions of Petrarch, one of his literary heroes. In 1525, Bembo wrote his own treatise on the Tuscan language, Prose della Volgare Lingua, in which Bembo codified Tuscan grammar and forcefully argued for its purity and superiority as a literary language. Rime served Bembo as an expression of these convictions. Appended to the poems is an index listing alphabetically the opening line of each poem. Following that are a handful of poems written to Bembo by his contemporaries, the replies to which are included in the preceding text. Among Bembo’s correspondents: Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara. Colonna was among the most well-known poets of 16th century Italy. There is also a poem from Veronica Gambara, who became a key intellectual figure and political leader in Corregio, which she ruled following the death of her husband in 1518.

Bembo also served as a secretary to Pope Leo x, was made a cardinal in 1539, and became historian of Venice and librarian at what is now the Bibliotheca Marciana. 

Per OCLC WorldCat, held by only five institutions in North America. Per Rare Book Hub, only two copies have come up at auction in the 20th century, one in 1977 and another in 2018.

USTC 813405

EDIT16 5019

$950