BOCCACCIO, Giovanni.

Lot 981
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Estimation :
4000 - 6000 EUR
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Result : 7 835EUR
BOCCACCIO, Giovanni.
Flame. Lament of Flammette's sad love affair with his amy Pamphile. Translate from Italian to vulgar Francoys. Lyon, by Claude Nourry dit Le Prince, 1532. In-8 (164 x 106 mm) of 96 ff.ch., title printed in red and black; Jansenist blue morocco, spine ribbed, inner wheel, gold edges, matching case (Gruel). Rare and beautiful edition of the first French translation. The volume contains the first French version of the Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, one of Giovanni Boccaccio's masterpieces and the archetype of European love fiction, composed directly in vulgar language around 1343-1344. A "humanistic" novel considered a prefiguration of the modern novel (Carducci), or even the first psychological novel, the Fiammetta - as it is commonly abbreviated - is written in the form of a long monologue in which the protagonist, a young Neapolitan woman married against her will, relates her love affair with the Florentine merchant Pamphile (Panfilo), deploring the vagaries of adulterous passion and contrasting desires. The anonymous French adaptor has somewhat reworked and reordered the original text, turning the austere scholarly monologue into a sentimental novel, which was to be a great success, especially in France. A first edition was published in Paris in 1531: only one incomplete copy of the title remains, preserved at the NYPL (cf. Brigitte Moreau, 1531, no. 51). The illustration, woodcut, consists of 10 vignettes taken from four different blocks. Six repeated figures, five of which are surrounded by borders, show Fiammetta; there are two other identical representations of the protagonist, one of which is repeated on the title with red highlights; the other two vignettes show the nurse - who will prevent the suicide of the protagonist - and Fiammetta quarrelling with her husband. Numerous historiated letters. Rare, USTC locates only 5 institutional copies, all in Europe, and none in the United States. United States
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