LORENZO DE’ MEDICI (1449-1492), ANGELO POLIZIANO (1454-1494)
Canzone a ballo composte dal magnifico Lorenzo de Medici et da M. Agnolo Poiliziano, & altri autori, insieme con la Nencia da Barberino, e la Beca da Dicomano composte dal medesinmo Lorenzo. Nuovamente ricorrette (colophon; In Firenze, no printer, 1568), but B. Gamba da Bassano, early XIX century or, more probably, late XVIIIth century


§ Large 8vo (230 x 160); 40, [5] pp, signature: A-E1-8, F1-2. Large-size woodcut vignette on title page, faithfully reproduced from the 1568 edition, showing Lorenzo de' Medici in the street in front of his own palace in Via Larga; behind him some young girls are singing in chorus. One of the girls hands Lorenzo an object, perhaps a tambourine with rattles or a begging bowl, the other a "majo", or May tree, according to an ancient tradition linked to the Calendimaggio festivities. Some pp. misnumbered. Later dark green boards. Spine a little worn., but a fine, uncut copy.

First published in Florence in 1562 and afterwards in 1568. Counterfait of the second edition, published by the bibliographer Bartolomeo Gamba da Bassano. In his Serie di testi in lingua italiana (1828) Gamba tells how about twenty years earlier he had the whim to republish the already very rare 1568 edition and how he produced about 100 copies, identical to the original even in the woodcut and the printing errors. To make his edition recognizable however, Gamba replaced the first woodcut initial (a P), representing in the original two fighting people, one thrown to the ground by the other, with a small landscape. Ref. Gamba, n. 893, p. 225; Sander 4458 and plate 620.