L'arte poetica del Sig. Antonio Minturno, nella quale si contengono i precetti heroici, tragici, comici, satyrici, e d'ogni altra poesia: con la dottrina de' sonetti, canzoni, & ogni sorte di rime thoscane, [...] Con le postille del dottor Valvassori, non meno chiare, che brievi [...]

4to (202x153 mm). [60], 453, [3] pp. Collation: α-η4 θ2 A-LLL4. Printer's device on the title page and on l. LLL4r. Colophon and register at l. LLL4r. Leaf LLL4v is a blank. Roman and italic type. Woodcut historiated initials. Contemporary flexible vellum with inked title along the spine (lacking a large portion at the bottom of the spine, panels' edges rubbed and frayed). Manuscript purchasing note on the title page: “Comprato a Roma a commissione del […] Francescant.o Cammarota dallo spedizioniere […] D. Alessandro Meucci in Luglio 1862”. Outer upper corner of about 10 leaves repaired at the beginning of the volume not affecting the text, some occasional browning and staining, a good, genuine copy.
First edition, first issue (the second issue is dated 1564 both on title page and on the colophon), dedicated to the Accademia Laria in Como (from Trent, 21 September 1563). The work was reprinted in Naples in 1725, in Munich in 1971, and in Madrid in 2009.
“Four years after the appearance of the De poeta Minturno published a second treatise on the poetic art, the Arte poetica, to which Minturno himself referred, within the work, as the Arte poetica thoscana (1563). This treatise, in Italian, applies to literature in the vernacular the principles earlier enunciated with respect to writings in Latin. Hence, it is in one sense less complete, in another sense more extensive than the first work: less complete insofar as much of the fundamental theoretical material is omitted, more extensive since a greater number of types and genres, recognized in Italian but not in Latin literature, are included. The Arte poetica is divided into four books. Book I presents, in very brief compass, generalizations on the nature, objects, manners, and means of poetry and then, in greater detail, a discussion of the epic. Book II treats dramatic poetry, both tragic and comic, and Book III the lyric. Book IV is devoted to diction. These divisions correspond roughly to Books II, III-IV, V, and VI of the De poeta, respectively […] The
new work presents, therefore, not only a condensation and an adaptation but in many cases a rearrangement of the materials of the old […] Finally, it must not be forgotten that this is an Arte poetica thoscana and that hence there will be differences springing from the special conditions of Italian literature. Obviously, the examples will now be Italian rather than Latin-Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Minturno himself-and some Italian sources (notably the De vulgari eloquentia and Tolomei's Versi e regole della nuova poesia toscana) will be called upon. Furthermore, the number of genres will be increased to include such forms as the sonetto, canzone, ballata, madrigale, and others in the lyric group, and the romanzo among epic types. Other additions occasioned by the adaptation to Italian literature are the discussion of Italian verse forms and the controversy over the use of prose. Minturno's two treatises on the poetic art thus present an essentially uniform approach to the problems of poetry, with only such differences as are occasioned by the division of materials and the nature of the literatures involved. Both attempt an amalgamation of divers theories and succeed only moderately in that attempt. Insofar as they do effect an organization of ideas, the ideas are subordinated to rhetorical rather than to poetic principles, and to rhetorical principles of a Ciceronian character. Much of the material contained in both is never brought into systematic arrangement and therefore remains essentially authoritarian and conventional” (B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, Chicago-Toronto, 1961, pp. 755-759).
Antonio Sebastiani was born in Minturno, near Latina, around 1497. In 1511 he moved to Sessa Aurunca to study with Agostino Nifo, whom he then followed to Padua and Pisa, where, by the end of 1520, he became a lecturer in poetics and oratory. At the end of 1521 he moved on to Rome as a lecturer i