ARETINO Pietro [Ragionamenti]. La terza, et ultima parte de ragionamenti del divino Pietro Aretino. Ne la quale si contengono due ragionamenti, cio è delle Corti, e del Giuoco, cosa morale, e bella.

Caswell (Cluzel), 19 ; Casi, 162 ; Edit16, CNCE 2487 ; Woodfield, 48 ; Pia, 1227.

Important unaltered edition of the last two Ragionamenti. It contains the “Dialogue of the courses” and the “Dialogue of the game”, necessary supplements to the first ragionamenti of Aretino (1492-1556), more “putanesque” and scabrous, and forming with these last a formidable table of the Italian customs of the 16th century, full of life and composed in a sparkling style. 

The two titles are decorated with a woocut portrait within a medallion depicting the author in profile, surrounded by the caption “D. Petrus Aretinus Flagellum Principum”.

 The work was produced by the publisher and typographer John Wolf († 1601), former apprentice of John Day, and perhaps at some time collaborator of the Giunti in Florence. He had established his shop in London opposite the Castle and near the south gate of St Paul, where he printed books protected by privileges granted to other publishers, earning him imprisonment in 1582. His Italian editions published in London – including works by Aretino, Machiavelli, etc. – are signed with pseudonyms and fanciful addresses. 

Copy printed on thin paper – the one kept in the Enfer of the BnF is printed on a thicker paper -, finely bound in Brussels in the 1870s by Émile Bosquet (1834-1912).

Small repair at the upper corner of f. F4 slightly touching the running title, small brown stain to upper margin of the last two leaves.