Le pazzie amorose di Rodomonte secondo, composte per Mario Teluccini, sopranominato il Bernia.

4to (200x150 mm). 218, [2] pp. Collation: A-N⁸ O⁶. Printer's device on the title-page (unicorn watering); large, almost full-page, woodcut device at the end showing a unicorn fighting three snakes. Historiated woodcut initials. The Argomenti, at the beginning of every Canto, are set in a rich woodcut frame. Eigheenth-century vellum over boards, red morocco label with gilt title on spine, blue edges, marbled endpapers. Title-page slightly waterstained, otherwise a very good copy.

FIRST EDITION, dedicated to Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza, of a twenty-canto poem singing the love of Rodomonte di Sarza for the beautiful Lucefiamma, daughter of Meandro, wealthy lord of a castle on the Genoese Riviera.

This work belongs to the group of poems inspired by the Orlando Furioso in which, however, the characters are not the same as in Ariosto's poem, but rather their descendants. In the Pazzie amorose, the protagonist, a grandson of Ariosto's Rodomonte, is a wicked character, who is contrasted by Fidelcaro, a positive hero, who in the end kills him (cf. G. Fumagalli, La fortuna dell'Orlando Furioso nel XVI secolo, Ferrara, 1912, p. 160).

Mario Telluccini, a native of Popiglio (Pistoia), called ‘Il Bernia', was active as a bookseller in Rome and an extempore poet in various Italian courts (e.g. Ferrara around 1543). He also wrote other chivalric epics: Paride e Vienna (Genoa, 1571), Artemidoro (Venice, 1566), and Erasto (Pesaro, 1566) (cf. G. Bertoni, Il Cieco di Ferrara e altri improvvisatori alla corte d'Este, in: “Il Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana”, 1929, XCIV, p. 277).

Edit 16, CNCE39098; A. Cutolo, I romanzi cavallereschi in prosa e in rima del fondo Castiglioni presso la Biblioteca Braidense di Milano, Milan, 1944, 125; M. Beer, Romanzi di cavalleria: il ‘Furioso' e il romanzo italiano del primo Cinquecento, Rome, 1987, p. 383; G. Melzi-P.A. Tosi, Bibliografia dei romanzi di cavalleria in versi e in prosa italiani, Milan, 1865, p. 283.