Description

8vo (177x112 mm). 272 pp. Collation: A-R8. Woodcut printer's device on the title page featuring the Medici's arms. Early 19th-century half vellum, lettering piece on spine. Ownership entries on the title page, one inked out, one by a certain Nicolaus de Buldellis. Some occasional light staining, but a very good copy printed on thick paper.
First edition, dedicated by the translator Francesco Baldelli to Giovanni Battista Ricasoli, Bishop of Cortona, of the first Italian translation of the chronicle by Robertus Monacus (or Robertus Remensis or Robertus de Sancto Remigio), a French Benedictine monk and historian, abbot of Saint Remy in Reims and then prior of Saint Oricle in Senus. A few years after the conclusion of the First Crusade, Robertus was commissioned to supplement the so-called Gesta Francorum. He wrote the Historia Hierosolymitana around 1106/07 also with the intention of supporting the efforts of the French royal house to launch a new crusade to the Holy Land. The Historia Hierosolymitana was first published in Cologne in 1472.
The work, translated into vernacular Italian by Francesco Baldelli, a native of Cortona, known as a translator of the classics and for his collaboration on Giolito's ‘Collana Istorica', is divided into eight books and deals with the war between the Christian princes and the Turks for the conquest of the Holy Land during First Crusade (1096-1099) (cf. C. Sweetenham, ed., Robert the Monk's History of the First Crusade, Ashgate, pp. 1-71).
This work is commonly considered as one of the possible sources of inspiration for Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered.
Although some bibliographies, including Adams (R-163) and Edit 16 (CNCE55525), mention an identical edition attributed to the Giunti's heirs, there is no doubt that this is a unique edition printed by Torrentino, as indicated by the type and his device on the title page (cf. W.A. Pettas, The Giunti of Florence, New Castle DE, 2013, p. 428)
Edit 16, CNCE46838; USTC, 852742; Moreni, p. 203.