THE BEST OLD EDITION OF THE DECAMERON, IN A REFINED COPY .

"...today of a certain rarity. It is the first edition to be released in quarto format, and the first in which an attempt was made to reduce the Decameron to its entirety" (Bacchi della Lega, 34)

This edition is highly esteemed from a philological as well as typographical point of view, and is also sought after for its rarity. It constituted a notable leap forward in textual quality, and was edited in 1516 by Niccolò Delfino, who collated the text of the 1472 Mantua edition, which in turn was substantially based on the princeps , with some fifteenth-century manuscripts. "Thanks to the discovery in the Vat. Chigiano L.VIII.304, f. 239rv of a list, autographed by Bembo, of entries taken from the Decameron, Vecce found that the numerical references placed next to the Boccaccian passages correspond to the pages of this print" (see Carlo Pulsoni). And so Bembo himself used this edition in his Prose. All subsequent editions were then based on the Delfino edition, starting from the one given by Aldo's heirs (Venice, 1522), which also includes the three pseudo-Boccaccian tales, added to the work for the first time by the Giuntas in 1516.