La Venetia edificata poema eroico di Giulio Strozzi. Con gli argomenti del sig. Francesco Cortesi

BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED BAROQUE POEM ON THE ORIGIN OF VENICE
 
Folio (318x220 mm). [24], 248, [8] pp. The illustrations include an allegorical title page bearing a bird's eye view of Venice at the bottom, a full-page portrait of the author, 24 full-page plates (one for each “canto” of the poem), and the full-page portraits of Flavius Aetius and Attila, all engraved by Francesco Valesio (b. ca. 1570) after Bernardo Castello and Marco Antonio Romiti. Printer's device on last leaf verso, decorative woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Text printed in two columns within a double typographic border. Italic type. 18th-century gilt calf, spine in compartments with double morocco lettering piece, marbled edges and endleaves (slightly worn and rubbed). Bookplate of Ferdinando Ongania (1842-1911) on the front pastedown. A very fresh copy.
 
First edition, published by Pinelli in the same year also in a pocket 12mo edition, of this heroic poem, one of best of the 17th century, on the foundation and early history of Venice up to the wars against Attila the Hun. The first twelve books of the poem had been previously printed by Ciotti in 1621 in an edition illustrated by only three plates.
“La vita dei Veneziani è descritta qual'era a' tempi del poeta; Venere, fabbricatasi uno splendido palazzo all'isola di S. Giorgio, vi tiene delle vere e proprie Accademie, ove gli amanti, seduti in cerchi, si narrano le novità del giorno e giocano a carte e cantano e recitano commedie e danzano. Molto sviluppato nel Poema dello Strozzi, è l'elemento sensuale” (L. Belloni, Il Seicento, Milan, 1929, pp. 142-43).
Giulio Strozzi, born in Venice, graduated in utroque jure at the University of Pisa in 1603. In 1606 he moved to Rome, where he started a successful career in the Roman curia. Around 1620 he decided to move back to Venice and to devote himself completely to writing, mostly poems, novels, tragedies, plays for music and, especially after 1626, short texts in verse or prose for religious or public occasions. The publication in 1621 of the first half of the poem La Venetia edificata was part of Strozzi's strategy for his come-back home. On 12 July 1623, the Senate ordered the payment of 100 ducats to the author as a contribution to the printing costs of the definitive edition of 1624. Strozzi was a member of the Accademia degli Incogniti and of the Accademia degli Unisoni. He died in Venice in 1652. Some of his music dramas had an international success and contributed to the diffusion of the Italian music theater all over Europe (cf. P. Cecchi, Strozzi, Giulio, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 94, 2019, s.v.).
 
Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\UBOE\016295; Olschki, 18710; Cicogna, 1827; Cicognara, 1044; Vinciana, 2853.