Alessandro Tassoni (1565-1635), La Secchia Rapita [The Captured Bucket]. Poema Eroicomico di Alessandro Tassoni Patrizio Modenese. Colle dichiarazioni di Gaspare Salviani, Romano. S’Aggiungono la Prefazione, e le Annotazioni di Giannandrea Barotti, Ferrarese; e la Vita del Poeta Composta da Lodovico Antonio Muratori Bibliotecario del Serenissimo Signor Duca di Modena (Modena: Bartolomeo Soliani Stamp. Ducale, 1744). Provenance: book plate of Marco di Carrobio. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process.

The War of the Oaken Bucket began late in 1325, when Malatestino dell Occhio, Lord of Rimini, led the Bolognese from Florence and Romagna to the fort at Monteveglio (12 miles west of Bologna) to regain a bucket of treasure stolen by the Modenese.
— https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/aerosan-war-sleds-red_army.html

Nearly three hundred years later in 1622, Tassoni published a mock-epic poem called La Secchia Rapita, which has also been translated as The Rape of the Bucket or The Stolen Bucket. Many translations and new edition followed, including two in 1744. The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the larger of the two, called “stimmatissima edizione” and “belle edition,” and one of the few copies with the plates printed with blue ink.

“The poem is pervaded by an exuberant, satirical, and often brilliant humor. There are passages in which the humor is sustained and cumulative, and others in which an apparent seriousness finds its climate in a sudden hilarious absurdity” (Ernest Hatch Wilkins (1880-1966), A History of Italian Literature (1974) (F) PQ4038.W5 1974 pp. 298-9).

Based on the life of Alessandro Tassoni by Muratori, this edition includes a commentary by Giovanni Andrea Barotti, and notes by the author written under the pseudonym Gaspare Salviani.

Many of the best artists of the period worked on this publication, including engravings by Giuseppe Benedetti (1707-1782); Andrea Bolzoni (1689-1760); Francesco Zucchi (1692-1764);
and Antonio Zuliani from designs by Bartolomeo Bonvicini; Domenico Maria Fratta (1696-1763); Pietro Gradici; and Francesco Villani, among others.

“Intaglio colour printing developed only gradually before 1700. Monochrome colour-printed engravings and etchings appear regularly from the fifteenth century, and some experiments with polychrome intaglio printing date from the time that chiaroscuro woodcut emerged en force in the 1520s…. The reasons for monochrome colour printing may have ranged from practical, such as to distinguish designs for goldsmiths (printed in yellow-brown) from those for silversmiths (printed in blue), to commercial, making the prints more attractive to collectors. — “Colour Printing in intaglio before c.1700,” in Printing Colour 1400-1700: History, Techniques, Functions and Receptions (2015).

See also:
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), The Rape of the Lock: an Heroic-Comical Poem in Five Canto’s [sic]. 2nd ed. (London: Printed for Bernard Lintott, 1714). Rare Books (Ex) 3897.374.11

Alessandro Tassoni (1565-1635), La Secchia Rapita; Poema Eroicomico … con le dichiarationi del sig. Gasparo Salviani [pseud.] el primo canto dell’ oceano nell’ vltimo corretti con gli originali (Bologna: Per G. Longhi [1670]). Editor: Paulino Castelucchio. Rare Books (Ex) 3138.01.38

Léon-Paul Fargue (1876-1947), Poëmes. Eaux-fortes en coleurs par Alexeieff ([Paris]: Librairie Gallimard, [1943]). Copy 61 of 136. Graphic Arts GAX 2017- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired another volume with aquatints by Alexandre Alexeïeff (1901-1982).

The Russian artist emigrated to France after the Russian Revolution and went on to animate films, design sets, and beginning in 1926, illustrate books by Poe, Baudelaire, Andersen, Hoffman, Tolstoy, Pasternak and Malraux, among others.

In her thesis (Universiteit Utrecht 2012), Bregje Hofstede lists 50 books with prints by Alexeïeff (file:///C:/Users/JULIEM~1/AppData/Local/Temp/Alexander%20Alexeieff%20and%20the%20Art%20of%20Illustration-1.pdf)

The chronological list below may not be complete. Titles with an asterisk have only been illustrated with a frontispiece.

Soupault, Philippe, Guillaume Apollinaire (Marseille: Éditions Les Cahiers du Sud, 1926).* – Giraudoux, Jean, La Pharmacienne (Paris: Éditions des Cahiers Libres, 1926). – Giraudoux, Jean, Siegfried et le Limousin (Paris: Aux Aldes, 1927). – Gogol, Nicolai, Le journal d’un fou (Paris: Schiffrin / Éditions de la Pléiade, 1927). Second edition: London, Cress Press Limited, 1929. – Hémon, Louis, Maria Chapdelaine. Récit du Canada Francais (Paris: Éditions du Polygone, 1927. – Maurois, André, Les Anglais (Paris: Cahiers Libres, 1927).* – Maurois, André, Voyage au pays des Articoles (Paris: Schiffrin / Éditions de la Pléiade, 1927). – Genbach, Jean, L’Abbé de l’abbaye, poèmes supernaturalistes. (Paris: Tour d’ivoire, 1927). – Soupault, Philippe, Guillaume Apollinaire, ou Reflets de l’incendie (Marseille: Les Cahiers du Sud, 1927).* – Morand, Paul, Bouddha Vivant (Paris: Aux Aldes / Grasset, 1928). – Pouchkine, Alexandre, La dame de pique (Paris: J. E. Pouterman Éditeur, 1928). Second edition: London, the Blackmore Press, 1928. – Kessel, Joseph, Les Nuits de Sibérie (Paris: Flammarion 1928). – Perrault, Charles, Contes (Paris: Hilsum 1928).* – Green, Julien, Mont Cinère (Paris: Plon, 1928).* – Apollianaire, Guillaume, Les épingles (Paris: Cahiers Libres, 1928).* – Soupault, Philippe, Le roi de la vie (Paris: Cahiers Libres, 1928).* – Bove, Emmanuel, Une Fugue (Paris: Éditions de la belle Page, 1928).* – Green, Julien, Adrienne Mesurat (Paris: Les Exemplaires, 1929). – Perrault, C., Les Contes de Perrault. Édition du Tricentenaire. Illustrés par 33 graveurs (Paris: Éditions Au Sans Pareil, 1928). – Giraudoux, Jean, Marche vers Clermont (Paris: Cahiers Libres, 1928).* – Poe, Edgar Allan, Fall of the House of Usher (Paris: Éditions Orion, 1929). Second edition: Maastricht, Stols, 1930. – Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Les frères Karamazov (Paris: la Pléiade / Schiffrin, 1929). – Kessel, Joseph, Dames de Californie (Paris : NRF, 1929).* – Poe, Edgar Allan, translated by Baudelaire, Colloque entre Monos et Una (Paris: Orion, 1929). – Delteil, Joseph, On the River Amour (New York: Covici, 1929). – Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich, Les recites de feu Ivan Pétrovitch Bielkine (Maastricht/Bruxelles: Stols 1930). – Fargue, L.-P., Poèmes (Paris: NRF Gallimard, 1931). – Fournier, Alain, Le Grand Meaulnes (Paris: Éditions de Cluny, 1931).* – [?] Louys, Pierre, Les Chansons de Bilitis (Paris: Cluny, 1933). – Baudelaire, Charles, Petits poèmes en Prose (Paris: Société du Livre d’Art, 1934). – Cervantès, Don Quichote, 1936. Published without text by ArtExEast, Geneva, 2011. – Andersen, Hans Christian: Images de la Lune (Paris: Maximilien Vox, 1942). – Afanas’ev, Aleksandr, Russian Fairy Tales (New York: Pantheon Books, 1945). – Soupault, Philippe: Journal d’un Fantôme (Paris: Éditions du Point du Jour, 1946).* – Tolstoy, Leo, What Men Live by: Russian stories and Legends (York: Pantheon Books, 1943). – Soupault, Philippe, Message de l’île déserte (Den Haag: Stols, 1947).* – Blake, William, Chants d’innocence et d’expérience (Paris: Cahiers Libres, 1947).* – Soupault, Philippe (transl.), Chant du Prince Igor (Rolle: Eynard, 1950). – Chekov, Anton, Une Banale Histore, suivie de: La Steppe – Goûssev – Vollôdia (Paris Imprimerie Nationale / André Sauret, 1955).* – Flaubert, Gustave, Premières Lettres à L.C. (Paris: Les Impénitents, 1957).* – Pasternak, Boris, Dr Zhivago (Paris: Gallimard, 1959). Second edition by Pantheon Books. – Hoffmann, Ernst Theodore Amadeus, Contes (Paris: Club du Livre, 1960). – Dostoevsky, Fyodor, The Gambler & Notes from the Underground (New York: Heritage Press / Limited Editions Club / Sign of the Stone Book, 1967). – Malraux, André, Oeuvres (Paris: Rombaldi, 1979). – Malraux, André, La Tentation de l’Occident (Paris: Ateliers Rigal, 1991). – Malraux, André, La Condition Humain, (Paris: Ateliers Rigal, 1991). – Malraux, André, La Voie Royale (Paris: Ateliers Rigal, 1991). – Malraux, André, Les Noyés de l’Altenbourg (Paris: Ateliers Rigal, 1991). – Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina (Paris: Rigal, 1995 / Librairie Nicaise, 1997). – Alexeïeff, Alexandre, Album de 120 eaux-fortes et Aquatintes de A. Alexeïeff (Paris: Ateliers Rigal-Bertansetti, 1997).