Orlando Furioso

Venice, Presso Antonio Zatta, 1772. Hardcover. The four volumes contain 56 full page copper engravings by Giuliano Zuliani, Tommaso Baratti, Ferdinando Fambrini, Giacomo Malosso, Giacomo Leonardis, Pietro Antonio Novelli and an engraved frontispiece of Ariosto by Giuseppi Daniotto. The notes for the binder call for another copper engraving to precede that frontispiece, but it is not present in this copy.

Marbled endpapers and edges. Each volume contain a cloth marker ribbon.

A large copy (289 x 204 cm) with wide margins. Bound in full calf. Binder's label of "C. Meyer, Bookseller and Bookbinder to the Queen and Princesses, 2 Hemmings Row, St. Martins Lane" - ie, Charles Meyer, a German emigre who was bookbinder to Britain's Queen Charlotte. Meyer was active in London from 1797 until his death in 1809, though the firm apparently continued until 1811, so the volumes were presumably bound during that 14 year period. The volumes were later rebacked (see photos).

Each volume contains, on the verso of the front free endpaper, an ink notation ("L/ 4 E 3"; "L/4 E 4"; "L/4 E 5"; "L/4 E 6") - presumably the location marks for a substantial private library, but the volumes contain no other indication of which of the several aristocratic collectors for whom Meyer worked was the original owner of these volumes.

In parts of volumes three and four, the upper and/or lower corners of the pages are very faintly dampstained, not affecting the text and in fact barely visible. With that exception, this is a very nice copy, clean, crisp and with wide margins, of a very handsome and finely illustrated edition of one of the monuments of classic Italian literature. . Four volumes. The 46 cantos are followed by the 5 additional cantos, and then by about 136 (unnumbered) pages of bibliographies, summaries and indices.