15th-century printed Italian editions of Aesopian texts

My thesis provides the first comprehensive and detailed account of the impact of the introduction of movable-type printing on the production and circulation of Aesopian texts in Italy in the second half of the 15th century. It highlights how the introduction of the new medium did not correspond, at least within the first decades, to a standardisation in the written circulation of the rich Aesopian corpus; on the contrary, it fostered the composition of new versions, translations and rewritings, contributing to enhance its varied and multiform nature. The goal of my thesis is to unveil this process, and to examine the parallel development of textual and figurative traditions of Aesopian texts in the earliest editions produced in Italy, in order to reassess their place in the wider context of the circulation of Aesopian texts in print. Chapter I introduces the main features of the manuscript transmission of those among Aesopian texts, which ended up in print in the first years after the introduction of the new medium. It also focuses on the cultural and historical circumstances of the production of the first editions in the European context. Chapter II presents, in chronological order, all the texts included in the Italian incunable editions, contextualising their authors, their main textual and stylistic features and the circumstances of their composition. Chapters III and IV respectively examine the evolution of the tradition of the different Aesopian texts in print and the evolution of the figurative and iconographic cycles of images illustrating Italian incunable editions of the Vita and the Fabulae. They present a synthesis and assessment of the first-hand data gathered in the Catalogue included in the appendix. The Catalogue in appendix offers a detailed and complete overview of the characteristics of all seventy Aesopian editions printed in Italy in the 15th century. Each edition is analysed with special attention to its bibliographic and textual features, its illustrations, and provenance information concerning the copies examined. The Conclusions focus on the originality of certain texts created specifically for the press, on the people who played an important role in the composition and printing of Aesopian texts, on the identification of new lines of transmission in print, on the distinction and analysis of different iconographic lines of descent in the illustrated editions, and on the discovery of noteworthy cases of provenance evidence, which suggest how the consumption of Aesopian Italian incunables transversely engaged people at different social and cultural levels.