The printed transmission of lyrics in Italy from 1470 to 1530 : the book of verse

The present work catalogues, describes and discusses the production in print of vernacular poetry in Italy from the editio princeps of Petrarch's Canzoniere (1470), to Bernbo's Rime (1530). The chronoloqical span considered encompasses radical transformations which took place in the world of literature, and which regarded both questions of text-transmission (the passage from script to print and the establishment of a sound printing trade) and literary transformations stricto sensu: the birth of a vernacular Literature, of a vernacular Language and of vernacular literary genres. The thesis investigates the typographic development of the book of verse, to see how it affected the nature and contents or the texts carried and ultimately also the definition of the canzoniere genre as the privileged, "official" form of writing poetry. Attention is focused both on the letter and structure of the texts and on the bibliographical environment in which they travelled. The thesis is therefore divided into two parts: Part one Writing and printing vernacular verses: towards the definition of a literary genre, discusses the production of vernacular poetry in the fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century in its historical context and in the forms of its production. collection and publication. Part two: The book as a material object, deals more directly with bibliographical questions. A Short-title Catalogue of all the book of verse printed in Italy in Italian vernacular between 1470 and 1530 and a Descriptive Catalogue, providing the bibliographical descriptions of roughly half of the editions listed in the Short-title Catalogue appear at the end of Part one and Part two respectively. The work is completed by a Chronological index of the editions and by an Index of printers and printing centres.