Faerno’s Fables
FAERNO, Gabriele.
Fabulae centum ex antiquis auctoribus delectae, carminibus explicatae … Padua, Giuseppe Comino, [(colophon:) 27 October] 1730.
4to, pp. [xvi], 115, [1]; engraved printer’s device to title, woodcut and factotum initials, woodcut head- and tailpieces, woodcut arms to colophon; a very good copy; bound in contemporary patterned paper over carta rustica, manuscript lettering to spine, edges speckled red and blue; somewhat rubbed and faded with some wear at extremities; nineteenth-century acquisition note to rear pastedown.
Added to your basket:
Fabulae centum ex antiquis auctoribus delectae, carminibus explicatae …
A collection of popular verse fables by the sixteenth-century scholar Gabriele Faerno of Cremona (c. 1510–1561), in an eighteenth-century patterned paper binding.
Faerno’s collection of one hundred Neo-Latin fables derived from classical authors was first printed posthumously in 1563. The text for this edition was prepared by the Paduan professor Giovanni Antonio Volpi, reusing earlier paratexts, several of which were addressed to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, a friend of Faerno’s. As well as the fables, some of Faerno’s other poetry is included in this edition, starting with a poem on the ‘Germanic sect’ of Lutherans, and containing epitaphs on Castruccio Castracani, Scanderbeg and Francesco Sforza.
The block-printed paper comprises a pattern of lozenges in red, yellow, and blue, together giving the impression of cubes, with a floral motif on one side. For the same blocks printed in only two colours, see Kopylov, Italiens 5.