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Boccaccio's Decameron

Item date(s): 1935

Giovanni Boccaccio

Pages: 318pp + 268pp
Size: 290mm
Collation: Two volumes
Binding: Full blue leather
Language: English

Sub-type: Precursor

Place publication: St Algates, Oxford
Publisher: The Shakespeare Head Press by Basil Blackwell

Additional notes:
The printing of this edition of Boccaccio's Decameron was begun in January 1934 and finished on 5th February 1935.

The decorative initial letters, which in these volumes are printed in blue, have been in part copied from those in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili; but only the letters F, L, O, P, R, T V, are met with in that book. The others have been designed by a modern calligrapher to complete the alphabet used by Aldus, and cast by Messrs H. W. Caslon and Co. The text throughout has been set by hand in Caslon's type.

Gilt lettering to spines. Illustrated with wood-cut engravings. Decorative initial letters printed in blue. Limited to 325 copies. The text of the First volume has been prepared from that of the First English translation, printed by Isaac Jaggard for Mathew Lownes in 1625, and compared with the first edition of 1620. The wood engravings have been re-cut by R. J. Beedham and E. Joyce Francis from those in the edition printed by the Brothers Gregorii at Venice in 1492. Illustrations have been copied in facsimile with a slight reduction from the woodcuts in the edition of the Decameron printed in Venice by the brothers De Gregorii in 1492.

Reference note:
This set has the Ex Libris of Sybil & Wallace Warner.

Volume the first: The Modell of Wit, Mirth, Eloquence and Conversation, framed in ten dayes, of an hundred curious pieces, by seven honourable ladies, and three noble gentlemen. Preserved to posterity by the renowned John Boccaccio, the first refiner of Italian prose.

Volume the second: Containing an hundred pleasant novels. Wittily discoursed, betweene seven honourable ladies, and three noble gentlemen. The last five dayes.

Ref: GB/30476