The most famous Italian poetess of her age

Colonna, Vittoria (1490-1547).

Rime... di nuovo ristampate, aggiuntovi le sue stanze, e con diligenza corrette. [Venice, Niccolò Zoppino?], 1539.

Provenance: 'di giannantonio Bartholi. Ede sua amicj' (contemporary ownership inscription on the title-page); 'di Paolo franceschi' (later ownership inscription on the same leaf).

Rare second edition, edited by Filippo Pirogallo and containing the same dedication from him to Alessandro Vercelli as in the first edition, which appeared in Parma in 1538. Pirogallo's unauthorized publishing aroused Vittoria's irritation. “The angry poetess could not prevent the piracy edition, because a copy right did not exist at her time. Pirogallo defended himself: 'The annoyance of one single lady has less importance than the demand of so many people'. He asked pardon for some errors, which had 'crept in', because he did not have the original sonnets at hand” (M. Musiol, Vittoria Colonna. A Female Genius of Italian Renaissance, Berlin 2013, p. 167).

In 1539, the Rime by Vittoria Colonna – the most famous Italian poetess of her age – was printed three times: the Florentine edition issued in July by Nicolo d'Aristotile followed by two other prints which appeared in Venice, the first published by Giovanni Marco Salvioni, and the second without mention of a printer or month of publication, but likely attributable to Zoppino.

The present edition contains the same poems as the first: a total of 145 poems, including nine by other authors, with the addition of the stanze 'Quando miro la terra ornata e bella' by Veronica Gambara, called here Stanze aggionte and wrongly attributed to Vittoria Colonna.

Baldacchini Annali, 395; T. Crivelli, “The Print Tradition of Vittoria Colonna's 'Rime'”, A. Brundin (ed.), A Companion to Vittoria Colonna, Leiden 2016, pp. 69-139; Philobiblon, One Thousand Years of Bibliophily, no. 95.