Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) - photo 1
Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) - photo 2
Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) - photo 3

Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)

Lot 172
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 5 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 470205
Lot 172 | Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)

La Gerusalemme liberata. 1745

TASSO, Torquato (1544-1595). La Gerusalemme liberata ... con le figure di Giambatista Piazzetta. Venice: Giambattista Albrizzi, 1745.



First edition with Piazzetta's illustrations, the most important Venetian illustrated book of the eighteenth century. All plates and the portrait of the Empress are in the first state, with the dedications beneath each plate and the rococo scrolls around the culs-de-lampes which were omitted in the second state. Andrew Robison has drawn attention to a copy of the prospectus issued by Albrizzi in the Pierpont Morgan Library, in which the publisher declares: 'Nothing will be lacking, neither in the correctness of the text, nor in the quality of the type, and of the paper: but above all I have endeavoured to distinguish my edition with the singularity and perfection of more than sixty plates, all of different designs, drawn by the celebrated Painter Piazzetta, and incised in copper by the most talented Engravers. This printing will satisfy not only the Poets, but also the Painters, and the Sculptors; and I expect that so many, and such fine ornamentations may never again be seen in any book'. 'Albrizzi's patronage of Piazzetta reached its climax in the most famous of all Venetian eighteenth-century books – the Gerusalemme Liberata ... For this book Piazzetta produced some seventy drawings' (Haskell, Painters and Patrons, pp. 335-336). At the height of Venetian book production, Piazzetta's Tasso stands out as one of the grandest examples, and a paradigm of the Venetian pastoral style. 'It is apt to consider the most beautiful illustrated book, the Gerusalemme Liberata by Piazzetta. Piazzetta proceeds from miracle to miracle – gives a bold proportion and transforms vignettes into the first real decorative etchings, which occupy a full-page' (Morazzoni). The vignettes are inspired genre scenes with shepherds, animals, nudes and richly clad Venetian ladies. The 20 head-pieces contain the 'argomenti' to each Canto. George Knox, Piazzetta. A tercentenary exhibition of drawings, prints, and books (Washington, 1983), p.168; Lanckoronska 240; Morazzoni 256; Andrew Robison, 'The Albrizzi-Piazzetta Tasso,' in: Non Solus I (Urbana-Champaign, IL), 1974.



Large folio (440 x 305 mm). Half-title, title printed in red and black with engraved vignette, engraved allegorical frontispiece, engraved portrait of the dedicatee, Empress Maria Theresa, by Felix Polanzani after Giambatista Piazzetta, extra-illustrated with an additional portrait printed on thick paper of the Empress showing her in later life; 20 plates with ornamental borders, 20 pictorial head-pieces and 20 culs-de-lampe, 5 of which full-page, full-page double portrait of Piazzetta and Albrizzi at end, all engraved by M. Schedl after Piazzetta, engraved historiated initials (small stain in leaf 2r). Contemporary half sheep over marbled paper-covered boards, gilt spine, decorative endpapers, red edges (head and tail of spine with some repaired losses, modern green morocco gilt spine label, extremities rubbed). Provenance: George Meare Tracy (armorial bookplate).

Auction house category:Books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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09.12.2020 – 09.12.2020
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Email
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