BARBIERI, Giovanni Maria, ed. FINO, Alemanio
La guerra d’Atila, flagello di Dio.
Venice, Appresso Domenico Farri, 1569.£1,950.00
8vo. ll. 103 (xiii). Italic letter. T-p partially within woodcut border, woodcut printer’s device. Woodcut initials, typographical headpiece. T-p with repair towards blank outer edge, small stain affecting one word, next with repair to outer margin affecting two letters on verso. Small wormtracks to lower blank margins of 7th leaf of a few gatherings., the occasional mark or spot, mostly marginal, affecting a few letters at head of N8r-M2v. Final leaf with repair to lower corner affecting a few words. A perfectly reasonable copy in original vellum, upper cover heavily scratched, worn. C19 inkstamped number to final blank verso, small sheet with notes in C19 hand laid in.
Rare second edition of Barbieri’s (1519-74) Italian prose rendering of the Niccolò da Casola’s C14th Franco-Italian poem by the same name. Barbieri’s version was first published Ferrara 1568, this Venice edition by an obscure Italian author, Alemanio Fino, with summaries of each book and a glossary explaining difficult Italian words to the rear.
The Bolognese humanist Casola’s poem was based on a prose version from the French romance tradition, the Estoire d’Atile en Ytaire, which was likely derived from earlier Latin sources. In Barbieri’s preface, which is preserved in this edition, he describes manuscript sources found in the archives of the Este family – dukes of Ferrara and patrons of both Barbieri and da Casola – acknowledging da Casola but also harking back to an almost certainly fictitious Latin source, a contemporary account of the Hunnic invasion and sack of Aquileia in 452 AD by Tomaso d’Aquileia, secretary to the C5th Nicetas, Archbishop of the city.
Da Casola’s poem begins with a knights’ tournament, staged by King Ostrubal of Hungary to find a husband suitable for his daughter. However, just before she is due to marry the victor, against her wishes, she is impregnated by a greyhound that shares her bed, and gives birth to Attila, half-dog and half-man. Barbieri confirms that Attila had a canine appearance and ferocity, but discounts da Casola’s romantic version of his birth, writing that Attila was simply a noble scion of the Huns who learned his feral ways in the forests of his homeland. He does, however, retain the chivalric aspects of da Casola’s version, especially its tournaments and combats between noble knights, in telling the story of Attila’s invasion of Italy and battles with the King of Padua and with Foresto, legendary ancestor and first prince of the Este family, who dies during the siege of Aquileia.
EDIT16 CNCE 4165. Adams C831. Brunet II, 1791. Not in Gamba or BM STC It.