Auiso piaceuole Dato alla Bella Italia, da un nobile giovane Francese, sopra la mentita data dal Serenissimo Re di Navarra a Papa Sisto V.

4° (183 x 135 mm). Collation: A-Q⁴. [4], 59 (numbered 3-61), [1] leaves. Roman and italic type. Woodcut decorated initials, head- and tailpieces. Eighteenth-century red morocco, over pasteboards. Covers framed within border of gilt fillets. Smooth spine, richly gilt tooled, title ‘MENTITA H HENRICO IV' lettered vertically in gilt. Pastedowns and flyleaves in marbled paper; board edges decorated with gilt fillet, inside dentelles. Gilt edges. A very fine copy, occasional light spotting and browning. Bibliographical notes on the verso of the first front flyleaf (‘v. cat. Libri 2535 (£ 80 nel 1847) e Brunet'). A lenghty annotation in an nineteenth-century hand, on the recto of the third flyleaf. 'Sisto quinto, doppo di aver scomunicato Enrico quarto, ne ebbe una mentita del detto Re, che fu attaccata in Roma; questa mentita fu stampata nel 1585, sotto nome di aviso alla bella Italia, e un signore francese, che possedeva perfettamente la lingua italiana la fè stampare a Monaco (forse d'ordine del detto Re Enrico) aggiungendovi de' Sonetti Satirici e delle note cavate dal Dante, Petrarca, e Boccaccio'. In another hand ‘ce Livre est fort rare 30fr.'

Provenance: Giannalisa Feltrinelli (1903-1981; ex-libris on the front pastedown; Christie's, The Giannalisa Feltrinelli Library. 1997); Livio Ambrogio collection.

First edition of this antipapalpamphlet, published by an anonymous ‘young French' (generally identified as François Perrot) after the papal excommunication for heresy of the future king of France Henri of Navarre. In his libel the author includes all the anticlerical and antipapal passages to be found in the works of the three greatest Italian poets, the so-calledTriple Crown: Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio. Twenty-six pages of quotations are devoted to Dante.