Third edition of frequently satirical poetry and plays written in (mostly blank) Italian verse by the Florentine statesman, poet and playwright Luigi Alamanni (1495-1556). He and his contemporary Giangiorgio Trissino pioneered the use of blank verse in Italian poetry. The French King François I (1494-1547), who promoted Renaissance Italian ideas and fashions in France, had been allied with the Medici in Florence, but when Giulio de' Medici (from 1523 Pope Clement VII) and François I fell out in 1521, Luigi Alamanni, whose family had long supported the Medici, took François's side and plotted against Giulio. As a result Luigi had to flee to France, living part of the time in Lyon and frequenting François's court in Paris. He returned to Florence when the Medici fell in 1527 but fled again when they regained power in 1530. As a result, he wrote most of his works in France.
The book was printed for the Giunti heirs by Peter Schoeffer the younger (ca. 1475/80-1547), the son of Gutenberg's assistant, who began printing in Mainz, but printed in Venice in 1541 and 1542.
With an early owner's inscription at the foot of the title-page. The first page and last page are very slightly browned and one page has torn at the foot along the gutter fold, but the book is still in very good condition, most leaves fine. With the front board detached, the back hinge worn, a vertical crack down the spine, and the right half of the spine label lost. BMC STC Italian, p. 12; Camerini, Annali dei Giunti 465; EDIT 16, CNCE 600; Gamba, Serie testi lingua Italiana (1839), 15; USTC 808166; cf. Adams A406-A407 (1532-1533 Lyons ed.).