First edition of Anterotica, sive de Amoris Generibus, in which the priest and Humanist Pietro Cavretto (Petrus Haedus, 1427-1504) addresses his nephew, a student at Padua University, with warnings about the dangers and delights of love. Unusually candid for a Renaissance cleric, Cavretto presents his ideas in the form of a lively dialogue set in the poets library, exploring passion, sexual attraction, marital conduct, and even contemporary fashions, including jewellery and hairstyles. The conversation unfolds between Cavretto himself, the priest Antonius Philermus, and the poet Quinzio Emiliano Cimbriaco, who contributes both a prefatory Hendecasyllabic poem (in eleven-syllable lines) praising the author, and a concluding Carmen ad lectorem, a short poem addressed to the reader. The work is rich in classical allusions, philosophical reflection, and occasional iconographical commentary on mythological representations in the visual arts.
The present work is printed by Gerardus de Lisa, the pioneering typographer of Treviso, born in Ghent, Belgium. De Lisa began printing around 1471 with the Manuale de salute animae, Trevisos first work, initially using an elegant Roman type similar to that of Venetian contemporaries Franz Renner and Adam da Ambergau. Around 1474, he briefly experimented with a rounded Gothic type, but soon returned to Roman faces. By the time of this 1492 edition, produced after his return to Treviso in 1488, De Lisas output had become limited, nonetheless, he revived a Roman type that had lain dormant for fifteen years. This type is used in the present work, the first and only incunable edition of Carvretto's philosophical and entertaining treatise on love, which combines erudition, and human experience, with an elegant typographical presentation.
With a brown stain on the last leaf, slightly affecting a few words. Otherwise in very good condition with wide margins. BMC VI, 885; Goff H 2; GW 12109; Hain-Copinger 8343; IDL 2197; ISTC ih00002000; Pellechet 5692; Polain 1843; Proctor 6507; USTC 994438; cf. about the printer see: De Lisa Gerardo in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, volume 36 (1988).