The first edition of Neo-Latin poet Girolamo Angeriano's book of erotic verse, inspired by a certain Celia, who may or may not have existed. The 198 poems are each between two and twenty lines in elegiac couplets, plus a prefatory quatrain in which Angeriano quietly discourages the reader from tackling the book. The poems are Petrarchan in style (if not structure; this is Ovidian), and are written from a variety of perspectives. Most are "Ad Cæliam," but some are dialogues between the poet and Cupid, mostly on Celia's irresistibility. Others are conversations between the poet and his own reflection in a mirror. In one poem, Angeriano imagines that the person gazing back at him in the glass is a male version of Celia. Elsewhere the poet imagines what Celia must think of herself when hunting, when sleeping, when bathing, when viewing a nude painting of herself. Angeriano frequently returns to mirrors as his core poetic conceit, at one point imagining Celia's own mirror describing what it's like to reflect such overpowering beauty. Angeriano's life is not well documented, but he was likely born in Naples about 1470. He flourished as a member of the Accademia Pontaniana in Naples at the turn of the century. He knew Sannazaro, as well as Pontano at the end the great man's life. The Erotopægnion was reprinted in France three times in the 1520s, and, according to a review of Allan Wilson's 1995 translation of the Erotopægnion, the poems greatly inspired the poets of La Pléiade. The manuscript tradition is scanty, with only two known from the 16th century: one at the Gerolami Library, and the other at the University of Pennsylvania (MS Codex 838). The latter is dated by Schoenberg as "c1510 (1500-1522)," but it is unknown if our first edition is derived from it, or the other way round. It's also possible that the authorities are independent. Our book was once owned by the Florentine scholar and bibliophile Tammaro De Marinis, and bears a note in his hand on a free end regarding the book's rarity, and the proliferation of defective copies in Italian libraries. The last leaf, with colophon, has more handwriting on verso, but it has been backed with thin paper, and even when backlit the writing remains tantalizingly illegible. A very good copy of a quintessential volume of amatory Neo-latin verse, tidily bound in morocco in the 17th century.   

Octavo, 167 x 103 x 10 mm (binding); 164 x 101 x 7 mm (text block) A-E⁸; [40] ff. 17th-c maroon morocco gilt à la duseuil, titled vertically on spine in second compartment, later gilt-printed endleaves. Interior: A clean copy, with slight soiling to first and last pages, and last leaf backed.

Provenance: Engraved ex libris of Baron Rolle of Stevenstone to upper pastedown; gilt ex libris of Federico Lobetti-Bodoni to recto of front free end; below this, an engraved armorial ex libris of "LSC." An early price in ink to recto of second free end: 0 - 7 - 6; note of purchase from Hoepli, with undeciphered price code, in Tammaro De Marinis's hand: IV (April) 1959. Penciled notes to rear endpaper, now erased. Acquired by W. S. Cotter from Libreria Chartaphilus, Milan, 2023.   

EDIT16 CNCE1881; USTC 809495; Decia (Giunti), p. 246; Brunet I: 291 ("rare"); Ferraro, Bruno, "The Erotopaegnion by Girolamo Angeriano and Allan M. Wilson," Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, vol. 58, No. 2 (1996), pp. 495-7; Wilson, Allan, The Erotopaegnion: a trifling book of love of Girolamo Angeriano; Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1995, introduction and passim; Binns, J. W., "The Erotopaegnion: A Trifling Book of Love of Girolamo Angeriano, by Allan M. Wilson," The Sixteenth Century Journal, Summer, 1997, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 548-50.

Florence: Filippo Giunta, 1512.

Item #350