Unboxing of Achille Marozzo's Opera Nova Second Edition

On Friday, November 13th, we received our copy of Achille Marozzo's
second edition printing of the Opera Nova. The book is 131 pages, with
83 full page wood cuts. It is dated to 1550 on the spine, but has been
cited as being the 1540 second edition, or perhaps the 1568 Third
Edition. There was no documented 1550 printing. There is an error in
one of the plates that matches other copies of the second edition that
was corrected in the Third Edition printing.

The video included is the unboxing that took place that evening with a
good portion of our teaching staff and some additional friends and
supporters. You can tell by our demeanor that we were pretty excited
to get this. Although the quality of the video does not portray it
very well, the book is in incredible shape and the level of detail in
the prints on the page is far greater than most of the facsimiles I
have seen floating around on the Internet.

We are now working on several projects concerning the volume: 1. A
project to properly display it in our museum, 2. A high-res
photographic reproduction, 3. A renewed translation effort to make the
text more accessible to the public. I would especially like to
translate the portions of the book, such as the section on Judicial
Dueling, that have not been widely translated by others to date.

Visitors are welcome to view the manuscript at our school in Vancouver, BC.
If you are interested in working with it, please make arrangements with us in
advance so we can ensure proper care and safety.

www.academieduello.com

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Nov 14, 2009

James Magnan said...

sweet! I gotta come in and have a look sometime. it looks like it is amazing condition.

Funny thought, that book is older than Vancouver.

Andre Kostur said...

Vancouver? That book is older than Canada. Come to think of it, any North American country.

Colin_Briscoe said...

The last page was written by owner Carlo Cobelli, dated 1657, Cremona, according to the auction catalog. It also says that this is likely the third edition ca. 1658. Read the rest here: http://www.adamsamsterdam.com/aabp/Home_files/Catalogue2books.pdf

Nov 15, 2009

Francesco Lanza said...

That's just beautiful! :)

Devon Boorman said...

I'm tracking down some of the identifiers between the second and third edition. From speaking with the auction house expert they were not certain whether it was a second or third edition because of the ambiguous date on the binding and some previous research that had suggested it was a second edition. Truth is I'm not really concerned either way but it is interesting to do the research.

Too bad the BSB doesn't have their version of the 1550 volume done yet for comparison. Any luck finding an exemplar?

Steven Reich said...

So assuming that the first edition is the 1536 edition, the second edition is the 1540/1550 edition, and the third edition is the 1568 edition, the way to tell them apart is that the second edition uses the woodcuts of the first edition, but the text is different (and mostly the same as the third edition). BTW, what was the error in the plate of the second edition?

Oooo - found a photo documentation of a 1568 version as well for comparison. The 1550 seems to be a hard find . . . http://mac9.ucc.nau.edu/manuscripts/marozzo.pdf. To whom is your volume dedicated?

I'm familiar with this reproduction. I had read that the 1568 edition still used the wood carvings but apparently that's not the case as those are the new version of the plates, which certainly supports a pre-1568 printing date for the edition we have. The question now is whether there were 3 printings done before 1568 or 2. I am only familiar with there being a 1536 and a 1540 (50?) printing. The reason that it may have been dubbed a 3rd edition is there was a belief at one time that there was a 1517 printing but that was later debunked.

To answer Steven's question, my understanding is that a section of one of the plates is printed upside down or something along those lines. I have to do some more research to find out what that is. I'll post when I know, though I have a feeling Colin might find out before me!

Assuming that the "first" edition (assuming that there was no 1517 edition--which is my current assumption) used woodcuts--then this edition did, too as they are the same plates. The 1568 edition used copperplates and (IMHO) give the illusion of greater clarity. However, if you look at the illustration from Guardia d'Intrare, you'll see that the woodcut is a little unclear, but the copperplate (i.e. the 1568 edition) is just ridiculous, as no one holds a sword in that position (and it is 180 turned degrees from the correct position). This leads me to believe that the engraver for the 1568 edition was merely copying what he thought he saw in the 1536 plates.

Devon - it is fairly clear that there have only been two editions prior to the 1568, the original and the 1550. The 1540 (or sometimes 1545) was an estimate without reference to any specific example and is almost certainly a reference to the known 1550 printing. Certainly no 1540 editions are extant. As for the 1568 edition, there were, in fact, two different ones, both produced in Venice. The one above, the Marozzo.pdf you referenced, Devon, is the Pinargenti version and is known to use the new plates. The other 1568, the Sesso version, used the original woodcuts, same as the 1550 and 1536 editions. All that you can gather from your edition's plates not matching the Pinargenti plates is that it is either the Sesso 1550 or the Sesso 1568, and so does not suggest an earlier date. What is the Title in your book (Arte Dell' Armi or Opera Nova)? And what does the colophon say? It should be possible to distinguish the 1550 from the Sesso 1568 with that info.

There are no instances in any version where a plate (meaning a picture) has been printed upside down, only that there are some printing errors in some volumes where some text has appeared upside down. It is unlikely that an error like this would affect and entire production run since it could be easily corrected in mid-stream of a print run. I haven't found enough information yet to sort out the significance of these errors or if they might be helpful in identifying a particular printing but still looking.

I watched the unboxing again, the frontisespiece is the same as the 1638 and says Opera Nova (yes?). If I can document that the Sesso edition of 1638 was updated in name like the Pinargenti version (from Opera Nova to Arte Dell' Armi) then you definitely have a 1550. Nearly there ;-)

Err - never mind. The frontisepiece is the same in all three version, it seems. It's all about the colophon now. Text please.

Nov 17, 2009

I have posted our latest progress in a new blog entry. Steve, if you're still reading I'm interested in what you may know about the dedication in this volume and how we can use that to link to the edition - http://academieduello.posterous.com/opera-nova-identification-progress

Academie Duello

School of Modern Swordplay

Unboxing of Achille Marozzo's Opera Nova Second Edition

Devon Boorman