24th ILAB International Antiquarian Book Fair - Vereinigung der ...

Tasso, Torquato. La Gerusalemme Liberata di
Torquato Tasso con le figure di Giambattista Piazzetta
alla Sacra Real Maestà di Maria Teresa
d’Austria Regina d’Ungheria, e di Boemia. Venice,
Giambattista Albrizzi q. Girolamo, 1745.
Folio (mm 434 × 300). ff. [14], 254 (i.e. 253, f.
14 lacking ‹ab origine› from leaf numbering).
Fly title, richly engraved frontispiece showing
Tasso’s portrait within an oval medallion, allegoric
vignette depicting Venice at red-andblack
title page, full-page portrait of the elderly
Maria Teresa of Austria engraved by Felice
Polanzani; dedication letter to Maria Teresa,
privilege leaf, «Catalogo degli Associati», «Allegoria
del Poema». 20 full-page wonderful engraved
plates, each one introducing a «Canto»,
surrounded by skillfully foliated frames and
including brief poems at lower margins. 20 ornated
head-pieces and tail-pieces (among these,
6 full-page). All plates are engraved by Felice
Polanzani after Giovanni Battista Piazzetta’s
drawings. Contemporary full calf binding, gilt
panelled covers with foliated roll-tooled frame,
seven raised bands at spine, with gilt title and
foliated tools; covers lightly rubbed, but a very
good copy. CHF 18 470.–
Universally considered as the most beautiful
among Venetian 18th Century illustrated books, the
edition of Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata printed
by Giambattista Albrizzi is richly illustrated by
the sumptuous plates based upon the drawings of
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. On the basis of typographical
and iconographical studies and according
to Radaeli (1989), the copies of this work are
usually divided into two states, named ‹A› and ‹B›:
the present copy can be related to the ‹A› version,
characterized by the portrait of the elderly Maria
Teresa, in addition to the presence of poetic verses
at the plate’s lower margins, and to the absence of
rococo culs-de-lampe at the base of the tail-pieces.
– The artistic work of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
(1682/83 – 1754) draws the passage between
baroque and rococo styles. During the last years
of his life he dedicated himself not only to painting,
but also to book illustration, and the wonderful
drawings executed for the Gerusalemme Liberata
represent his most important achievement in this
field. The original sketches, made between 1735
and 1743, are now in the Royal Library of Turin.
As a wonderfully skilled painter of bucolic scenes
and religious subjects, in 1750 Piazzetta founded
his own school, that later gave birth to the Accademia
Veneziana. – Bibl. ref.: Giuseppe Morazzoni,
«Il libro illustrato del Settecento», Milano, Hoepli,
1943; Francesco Radaeli, «Alcune note al Tasso
del Piazzetta», Milano, edited by the Author, 1989;
Marino De Grassi, «Libri illustrati del Settecento
Veneziano», Monfalcone, Ed. Della Laguna, 1996.
Libreria Editrice Goriziana 49