A very famous edition, a masterpiece of eighteenth-century Venetian printing, and more generally one of the main Italian illustrated books of the eighteenth century.
Commenting on this publication, Albrizzi said: "You will lack nothing , nor the text, nor the characters, nor the chosen paper; but my dearest wish is that my edition stands out from the others for the perfection of the sixty illustrations, due to the famous painter Piazzetta, reproduced in copperplate by the most talented engravers. This edition will satisfy not only poets, but also painters and sculptors; and I am so proud of it that I believe a work so richly illustrated and with such taste will never appear." Piazzetta's illustrations often have little bearing on the content of the poem, drawing instead on contemporary French Rococo sources, showing shepherds and shepherdesses in pastoral settings.


Brunet V, 666; Cohen & De Ricci, 978. George Knox, Piazzetta. A tercentenary exhibition of drawings, prints, and books (Washington, 1983), p. 168. Graesse VI/2, 33: “Edition magnifique qua l'impression et au papier"; Reason and art. Torquato Tasso and the Venetian Republic, Venice, Il Cardo 1998 , p. 206-208 ; Morazzoni, The Venetian illustrated book of the eighteenth century, Milan, Hoepli 1943, p. 256: «it is not wrongly considered the most beautiful Venetian book [...] G.B. Piazzetta complied with the publisher's wishes as an equal, surpassing Bossuet's already beautiful edition in brio and happiness of inventions, designing 70 compositions and showing off a pleasantness that makes us go from wonder to wonder [...] is an edition that well characterizes an era, and well deserves all the admiration that still surrounds it today"; G. B. Piazzetta: drawings, engravings, manuscript books, Vicenza, Neri Pozza 1983, p . 70-71.