ESOPE Vita Esopi.

HR 354; GW 445; IGI Corr. 115A; Essling 611; Sander 61; Accurti, Ed. saec. XV, p. 108; Goff A-110; Schäfer /von Arnim 5. 

First separate edition of Aesop’s Life. A charming incunabulum illustrated with 24 woodcuts.

This edition reproduces the text of Francesco del Tuppo’s edition of Aesop’s life, published in Naples in 1485. Francesco del Tuppo provided a new Italian translation of the text, basing his life of Aesop on the Latin translation by Rinucius of Arezzo. With the exception of the woodcut title and borders, already used by Bonelli for his edition of the Fabulae, the woodcuts appear here for the first time; they are the work of the same artist who designed the engravings for Bonelli’s Fabulae, and are inspired by the Neapolitan illustrations in del Tuppo’s edition.

Essling described Bonelli’s vignettes as “worthy of comparison with the best Venetian engravings of the late fifteenth century” (III, p. 78). Their stylistic resemblance to the woodcuts in the Malermi Bible has often been noted; Hind suggested that they may have been designed by the same artist (Introduction to a History of Woodcut, pp. 413-14).

Carefully washed copy with slightly short top margins, tiny central crack restored over ¾ of the book, upper corner of last leaf restored affecting a few letters.