BATTISTA GUARINI - University of Oxford

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4. Il pastor fido … Ora in questa XX. impressione di curiose, & dotte Annotationi
arricchito, & di bellissime figure in rame ornato. Con un Compendio di poesia tratto
da i duo Verati, con la giunta d‟altre cose notabili. In Venetia, appresso Gio. Battista
Ciotti, MDCII, 4º (8s). Pp. [32], 488, [12], 64.
All Souls: kk.7.16 (with type B of Compendio 1601). Bodleian (2 copies): G.36.Art,
Mortara 885. Taylorian: Arch. 8º It. 1602 (LP copy). BL: 84.f.15. *BNF: Yd.630.
*BNFArsenal (3 copies): 4º BL.2470, 2471, 2472.
The definitive version of the Pastor fido, with Guarini‟s own annotations, this edition
has an engraved portrait of the author by Lukas Kilian (1579-1637). The title-page is
partly engraved and there are 6 full-page engravings by Francesco Val[l]egio or
Valesio, only one of which, however, that to Act II, is actually signed. It has been
argued that the costumes and scenery depicted were based on the staging of Giovanni
Battista Aleotti, detto „l‟Argenta‟, for the 1598 production of the play at the court of
Mantua. See Adriano Cavicchi, „La scenografia dell‟Aminta nella tradizione
scenografica pastorale ferrarese del sec. XVI‟, in Studi sul teatro Veneto fra
Rinascimento ed età barocca, a cura di Maria Teresa Muraro (Firenze, Leo S.
Olschki, 1971), 53-72, especially pp. 63-68. But see also Lisa Sampson‟s article „The
Mantuan performance of Guarini‟s Pastor fido and representations of courtly
identity‟, Modern Language Review 98/1 (January 2003), 65-83, especially p. 80 and
n. 53. The BL copy, on large and thick paper, was a presentation copy to the Doge of
Venice, Marin Grimani.
The pagination of the volume is somewhat erratic, running 1-52, 55-63, 62-63, 66-78,
77-124, 124-126, 128-488, with a large number of individual errors which do not
affect the general sequence. The pagination in the BL copy runs somewhat
differently, however: 1-52, 55-63, 62-63, 66-78, 77-136, 139-140, 139, 142-143, 142,
145-193, 196, 193, 196-488. Unless otherwise indicated, the accompanying
Compendio in the copies examined is Type A of 1602, as identified above.
In Act II, scene ii, at the bottom of p. 96, there is a printed slip bearing the words of a
missing line of text („E tal‟hor non ti bacia. Sil. nè mi bacia,‟) pasted in over the
catchword „E talhor‟. This correction will be repeated in the paginated „XXVII.
impressione‟ (see next entry) but the error will be rectified in the foliated version of
the „XXVII. impressione‟ (see 1602/6), in which the line is set as part of the text and
appears at the top of f. 65.
The reason for this edition being designated as Ciotti‟s „XX. impressione‟ is unclear
and the designation of the following editions as „XXVII. impressione‟ even more so.
Was it simply a publisher‟s ploy? The popularity of the 4° editions of 1602 may have
demanded extra printings but perhaps not as many as Ciotti seems to claim. And why
was the 1625 edition (1625/1) also dubbed „XXVII. impressione‟, when Ciotti had
already issued a „xxx impressione‟ in 1606 (1606/5) and again in 1609 (1609/3)?
ICCU. FirstSearch. Italian books 1601-1700, reel 59, item 8. Gallica.