ITALIAN EDITION OF OVID WITH UNUSUAL WORLD MAP

AUTHOR:

DOLCE, LODOVICO / OVID

TITLE:

Le Trasformationi Di M. Lodovico Dolce... [with untitled world map]

CONDITION:

Octavo. Later vellum binding, gilt-stamped on spine. A very good example with some marginal staining and one clean tear to title.

DATE:

1553

DESCRIPTION:

First edition. Lodovico Dolce was a sixteenth-century Venetian humanist who translated a number of classics. “In his version of Ovid an unusual small world map appears in the text: a combination of Gastaldi and Macrobius. The north and south parts of the hemisphere are separated by a latitudinal band and the words Zona Torrida Inhabitabile. The straits of Magellan are named and there are wind-cherubs bordering the map. The same plate was repeated in later editions and may have been used in other works by Dolce, of which there were many, throughout the mid-sixteenth century” -- Shirley. Dolce was famous in his own time for a wide variety of literary enterprises but is remembered primarily for his Dialogue on Painting. Although he produced several hundred volumes bearing his name - whether as author, editor, translator or critic - and gained universal renown in his own century, few today recognize his significance as one of the major promulgators of culture in Cinquecento Italy.

REFERENCES:

Inventory No. 13469