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>From: John Barton <lander.barton@xtra.co.nz>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <exlibris@library.berkeley.edu>
>Subject: Orlandini's Decameron
>Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 7:28 AM
>
> A question not answered by any book of firsts or of records yet seen,
> is: What is the earliest facsimile of a printed book?
> In an online bookseller's catalogue, the answer is given (without
> qualification or citing authority)as the 1729 facsimile of the renowned
> Ventisettana edition of Boccaccio's "Il Decamerone", Florence: Giunta,
> 1527. Brunet I 999; Graesse I 449-450; Gamba 472 (none of which are
> available to me). Apparently an edition of 300 copies,the majority of
> which is said to have been destroyed by fire, [Venice: Pasinello &
> Orlandini, for Salvatore Ferrari, or perhaps in reality financed by the
> English Ambassador in Venice, Joseph Smith].
> There was however an edition of the same 1527 text by [Thomas Edlin,
> London 1725]. Both could be termed reprints, and also counterfeits,
> almost certainly intended to deceive. The 1729 edition is valuable in
> that some misprints in the original are corrected, but it is still "an
> astonishingly exact facsimile".
> Presumably, despite priority, the 1725 reprint/forgery has been
> disqualified from the status of 'facsimile' on the grounds that it,
> unlike the 1729:
> Is printed in Roman letter instead off italics.
> Has a frontispiece and portrait.
> Is 4to instead of 8vo.
> Regardless of which it was "at first easily mistaken for the real
> thing", and probably so intended. (Maybe the illustrations were first
> removed!).
> Are there Exlibri able and willing to confirm, dispute, or offer other
> contenders for the world's first facs? Or who can source the limitation
> to 300 copies? There are two reasons why I hope the bookseller is
> correct. Firstly, because it is romantic that the notion of facsimiles,
> complete with the use of antique-style paper, should have been motivated
> by fraud. In a book of excellent quality with nothing indicating it is a
> reprint. Secondly, I own a copy.