Lettere [...] Parte prima [-seconda]

8vo. Two parts. (I:) (8), 223, (1 blank) leaves, a8, A-Z8, Aa-Ee8 (Ee8 is a blank); (II:) (8), 148 leaves, a8, A-S8, T4. With the printer's device on both title-pages. Contemporary limp vellum, old entries of ownership on the title-page anciently inked out, a contemporary hand has written down in abbreviated form the ‘capi' of the letters.
Basso, pp. 357-358¸ Edit 16, CNCE 24920.
 
FIRST EDITION. The volume contains a total of 562 letters (323 in the first part and 239 in the second) and not only 511 as quoted by J. Basso (op. cit., p. 357), who probably based her counting on the original table of contents made by leaves (several leaves contain more than two letters).
The volume opens with a dedication by Zucchi's cousin Giovanni Antonio to Bartolomeo Brugnoli, president of the Senate of Milan, dated March 25, 1599. In the preliminary leaves are found laudatory poems addressed to Zucchi by the same Giovanni Antonio; by Angelo Grillo, a Benedictine, man of letters and member of the Academia of the Umoristi of Rome; and by Fulvio Mariottelli, member of the Accademia degli Insensati of Perugia. Both volumes have indexes of the addressees and tables of the ‘capi' (kind of letters) with their incipit.
Many of Zucchi‘s letters are addressed to relatives and are mostly written during his stay at Rome from June 1585 to July 1597. But they are also addressed to famous people as Torquato Tasso, Battista Guarini, Annibal Guasco, Giuliano Goselini, Angelo Grillo, etc. Noteworthy is also his correspondence with Virginia Maria Leyva (ll. 191v-193v), the notorious Nun of Monza, a figure that endured as the inspiration for numerous novels, including Manzoni's celebrated I promessi sposi (1827), and in recent times for several movies (cf. F. Medioli, To Take or Not Take the Veil: Selected Italian Case Histories, the Renaissance and After, in: “Women in Italian Renaissance Society and Culture”, L. Panizza, ed., Oxford, 2000, pp. 122-137).
 
(Parte Prima:)
Sfondrati, [Giovanni Paolo] Monza (l. 1r)
Soroldoni, Paola Maddalena. Monza, April 3, 1585 (l. 2r)
Della Rovere, [Girolamo]. Roma, June 4, 1585 (l. 2v)
Signor * Principe. Roma, July 8, 1585 (l. 3r)
Scotto, Bernardo. Roma (l. 3v)
Albano, Orazio. Roma, July 20, 1585 (l. 4r)
Signore ***. Roma (l. 4v)
Spinola, [Filippo]. Roma, January 10, 1586 (l. 5r)
Cardinal del Mondovì [Lauro, Vincenzo]. Roma (l. 5v)
Signore, ***. Roma (l. 5v)
Signore * Duca. Roma (l. 6r)
Zucchi, Baldassare. Roma (l. 6v)
Signore ***. Roma, March 5, 1586 (l. 7r)
Melzi, Serafino. Roma, March, 25, 1586 (l. 7v)
Zucchi, Giuseppe. (l. 8r)
Alciati, Cesare. Roma, February 14, 1586 (l. 8v)
Signore ***. Roma, May 23, 1586 (l. 9r)
id. Roma (l. 9v)
Goselini, Giuliano. Roma, June 11, 1586 (l. 10r)
n.r. Roma, June 11, 1586 (l. 10v)
id. (l. 11r)
Conte della Trinità, [Costa, Giorgio]. Roma, July 1, 1586 (l. 12v)
Francesco, Guasco. Roma, July 20, 1586 (l. 13r)
Signore ***. Roma, September 3, 1586 (l. 14r)
Zucchi, Girolamo. Roma, September 20, 1586 (l. 14v)
Signore ***. Roma (l 15r)
Botta, Lavinia. Roma, October 12, 1586 (l. 15r)
Cardinale ***. Roma, October 25, 1586 (l. 15v)
Della Rovere, Girolamo. Roma, October 25, 1586 (l. 16v)
Sfondrati, [Paolo Emilio]. Roma, November 3, 1586 (l. 17r)
Della Rovere, Girolamo. Roma, December 17, 1586 (l. 17v)
Signore ***. Roma (l. 18r)
Belluomini, Mario. Roma, March 20, 1587 (l. 18v)
Ottavio * Conte. Roma, April 6, 1587 (l. 19r)
[Paravicini, Ottavio], Bishop of Alessandria. Roma April 21, 1587 (l. 19v)
Barsotti, Giulio. Roma, May 7, 1587 (l. 20r)
Signor ***. Roma, May 14, 1587 (l. 20v)
Zucchi, Baldassare. Roma, May 19, 1587 (l. 22r)
Signore ***. Roma, June 6, 1587 (l. 24v)
Panigarola, Alessandro. Roma, June 26, 1587 (l. 25r)
Tasso, Torquato. Roma (l. 25v)
Signore ***. Roma, June 28, 1587 (l. 26r)
Riccardi, Jacopo. Roma, July 18, 1587 (l. 27r)
Signore ***. Roma, July 23, 1587 (l. 27v)
Alciati, Cesare. Roma, August 1, 1587 (l. 28r)
Riccardi, Jacopo. Roma, August 7, 1587 (l. 28v)
Gio. Battista * Conte. Roma, Augu