TRISSINO Gian Giorgio Dialogo del Trissino intitulato Il Castellano, nel quale si tratta de la lingua italiana

USTC 861239; EDIT16 25807; Brunet, V, col. 952.

First edition printed using Arrighi’s famous italic typeface.

Born into a noble family, Trissino (1478-1550) studied Greek in Milan with Demetrio Calcondila. His literary output and theoretical reflections on the vernacular reveal a Hellenistic classicist orientation, aiming to promote the Greek model over the Latin model. Forced into exile because of his support for the Empire rather than the Venetian Republic, Trissino stayed in Ferrara, Florence and Rome at the papal court, also carrying out various diplomatic missions for Leo X, Clement VII and Paul III.

Trissino’s linguistic ideas are expressed above all in the dialogue Il Castellano (1529), set in Rome in 1521, in which the author’s positions, expressed by Giovanni Rucellai, commander of the papal fortress of Castel Sant’Angelo (hence the title of the work) and supported by Jacopo Sannazaro, are opposed to those of the Florentine Filippo Strozzi.

Lower portion of leaf A1 truncated and replaced at the moment of binding, old restoration on the verso of the same leaf. Attractive copy bound for Duke La Vallière.

Provenance : duc de La Vallière (de Bure, Catalogue de la bibliothèque, II, 2218) – M. Nicolle (signature sur la garde)