De fortuna. F. Mar. Mantuae

4to (205x146 mm). [8]. Collation: a-b4. Later cardboards, inked title on spine. Contemporary manuscript note on l. b1r. Some pale staining, gutter of the last two leaves reinforced, a good, wide-margined copy.
Rare first edition. The author wrote the poem to comfort Francesco Gonzaga (1466-1519), the 4th Marquis of Mantua, who was captured by the Venetians on August 9, 1509, while preparing to attack Legnano. The duke remained imprisoned for a year and was released by Pope Julius II. From 1509 to 1510, his wife, Isabella d'Este, held the regency of the duchy. Therefore, the edition was printed after August 1509 (cf. A. Serra-Zanetti, L'arte della stampa in Bologna nel primo ventennio del Cinquecento, Bologna, 1959, p. 186).
Alongside this one, the printer Benedetto Faelli published in Bologna two other issues of this edition, with and without typographical notes, under the title Fortuna (Edit 16, CNCE 78228 and 77229, cf. Serra-Zanetti, op. cit., pp. 186-187). The following year the booklet was also printed in Pesaro by Girolamo Soncino. Soncino's edition bears the erroneous date 18 June 1509. G. Manzoni (Annali tipografici dei Soncino, Bologna, 1886, II, pp. 222-225), who did not notice the error (Spagnoli could not have written the poem before the capture of the marquis, which occurred, as mentioned, on August 9), considers the Soncino edition to be the first, whereas it did not actually appear until the following year.
G.B. Spagnoli, a Carmelite poet born in Mantua to a Spanish father, studied grammar under G. Tifernate and philosophy in Pavia under Fr. Bagelardi. After a few years of bad friendships and accusations of usury and slander, he entered the Carmelite Order. In his first publication, the De vita beata, he blamed his earlier errors of youth. After gaining the favor of the Duke of Mantua, Spagnoli was put in charge of educating the young heirs of the Gonzaga family. In 1513, he was appointed General of the Order. Regarded by his contemporaries as a new Virgil, he was beatified in 1885 (cf. W. Zabughin, Un beato poeta, Rome, 1918, passim; see also A. Severi, Spagnoli, Battista, detto Battista Mantovano, Battista Carmelita: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 93, Rome, 2018, s.v.).
Edit 16, CNCE 47855; BMSTC Italian, p. 635; USTC, 857174.