Rare second Bordone edition of the collected Rime and Sonetti of Isabella Andreini (1562-1604), first published in 1601; a Parisian edition also appeared in 1603. The first edition to appear after Andreini s death while travelling from France to Italy, it contains numerous laudatory odes and elegies in Italian and Latin, appearing here for the first time. Andreini was a noted Italian actress of the commedia dell arte who performed with the Compagnia dei Comici Gelosi, one of the predominant troupes of the time; the stock character of the inamorata Isabella is supposedly named for her. In addition to the plays that she wrote for I Gelosi, Andreini s poetry earned her a reputation for eloquence, which gained her a place in the Accademia degli Intenti of Pavia (for which she took the name Accessa , appearing here in the emblematic frontispiece), and which is attested here in the elegiac verses, all by men, many fellow academicians, at the start of the volume. Andreini was chiefly a writer of Petrarchan sonnets, of which there are well over two hundred in this volume. The index of titles further divides Andreini s poems into madrigali, canzoni, sestine, epithalami, centoni and capitoli, as well as funerary verses and eclogues, the latter describing the love affairs of various shepherds and nymphs.
