MASSOLO, Pietro

by Pietro Massolo

£4,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition of Pietro Massolo s collected poems, and one of the few published by Antonio Manuzio in Bologna between 1556 and 1557 (Ascarelli-Menato, p. 60). Pietro (1520-1590) was son of Lorenzo Massolo and Elisabetta Querini, the beautiful noblewoman praised by Bembo and portrayed by Titian. In 1537, shortly after the marriage, for unknown reasons Pietro murdered his wife, the young daughter of Stefano Tiepolo, a senator and procurator of Venice. To expiate his crime, he found refuge in the Convent of San Benedetto in Mantua and became a monk with the cloister name of Lorenzo, in the Congregation of Monte Cassino. He met the most learned men of his age and composed numerous poems. The work is dedicated to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and consists of 400 sonnets addressed to different historical personalities. Among them are politicians (the Emperor Carlo V; Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara; Cosimo de Medici, Duke of Florence; Henry, King of France; Lorenzo Priuli, Governor of Venice; Ferdinand Hapsburg); religious (Daniele Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia; Giovanni della Casa, Archbishop of Benevento; Pope Paul III) and scholars (Annibal Caro, Sperone Speroni, Pontano, Lodovico Dolce, Girolamo Ruscelli, Lodovico Castelvetro, Gian Giorgio Trissino, Benedetto Varchi). The volume also includes sonnets devoted to Pietro Massolo s parents (322) and to his father-in-law, the Captain Stefano Tiepolo (302), honoured for his military successes against the Ottoman Empire. They

• Binding: Hardcover

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