66 - Caro (Annibale) Apologia de gli Academici di Banchi di Roma, first edition, printed on blue paper, collation A-Z a-i4 k6 l-m4 engraved title-vignette, woodcut initials and decorations, some browning and staining, 18th century mottled half calf over decorative boards, slight worming to spine, 4to (209 x 148mm.), Parma, Seth Viotto, 1558.

Caro (Annibale) Apologia de gli Academici di Banchi di Roma, first edition, printed on blue paper, collation A-Z a-i4 k6 l-m4 engraved title-vignette, woodcut initials and decorations, some browning and staining, 18th century mottled half calf over decorative boards, slight worming to spine, 4to (209 x 148mm.), Parma, Seth Viotto, 1558. *** A gift from the author to his friend the writer Marco Antonio Piccolomini (1504-1579) with the latter's inscription on the title-page: ‘Di M. Anto piccolomini & degli Amici mdlviii Dono dell’Autore’. Additionally, on the verso of the front flyleaf is a sonnet by Giacomo Marmitta, unpublished at the time and written in Piccolomini’s own hand, dedicated to ‘Comendador Caro’ togather with ink marginalia by Piccolomini on fols. F4v and k6v. One of the great literary quarrels of the Renaissance, the dispute centring on the poem Venite all’ombra de’ gran Gigli d’oro (‘Come to the shade of the great golden lilies’), which had been commissioned by Alessandro Farnese and which Caro had composed in praise of the French monarchy. The poem was harshly criticized by philologian Ludovico Castelvetro (1505-1571). Caro replied to Castelvetro’s criticism with his Apologia, which ends with a Corona of nine injurious sonnets through which Caro comes to accuse Castelvetro of having murdered Alberico Longo, Caro’s advocate in this impassioned quarrel. Only one other blue-paper copy is known, held at the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma. Literature: Adams C-739; Gamba 276.