(LITERATURE; ILLUSTRATED; RARIORA) Ludovico ARIOSTO (1474-1533) Orlando Furioso di M. Lodovico Ariosto. Tomi I. [IV.]. Venezia, presso Antonio Zatta, 1772-3. § IV volumes, 4to; I: [16], LX, 300 pp., [21] leaves of plates, sign.: *-**4, a-g4, h2, A-OO4, PP2; II: [214] leaves, [15] leaves of plates, sign.: A-FFF4, GGG6; III: [206] leaves, [16] leaves of plates; IV: [268] leaves, [14] leaves of plates, sign.: A-XXX4. Contemporary brown half calf, spine with five ribs and six compartments, each one delimitated by a gilt-stamped fillet, author and title on beige morocco labels and tomaison on green morocco. A unique and beautiful copy with full, original margins, on grand papier, of an unknown variant; engravings extremely limpid with a splendid chiaroscuro rendering. The only known copy of an unrecorded variant of the celebrated Orlando by Zatta. Plausibly belonging to an early emission thought as presentation gift for the financing sponsors of the printing run of this work, in this copy - completely printed on laid paper - can be observed a different kind of title page, simpler and without the engraved frames by Pietro Antonio Novelli (1729 - 1804). Beside that, this variant resembles under every aspect the regular emission, with 58 full page and 36 half page engravings, 51 argomenti engraved at the beginning of each canto, 20 among heads and tailpieces, designed by Novelli and others and engraved by Giuliano Zuliani (1730 - 1814), Tommaso Baratti (fl. 1772 - 1801), Ferdinando Fambrini (fl. 1763 - 1794), Giacomo Malosso (fl. 1772 - 1773) and others. The text was edited and revised by Leonardo Marcellotto (fl. 1744 - 1773) and Antonio Cilis (fl. 1772 - 1773), with the addition of a biography of Ludovico Ariosto by Giovanni Andrea Barotti (1701 - 1772) at the beginning of the first volume.  AGNELLI-RAVEGNANI Annali delle edizioni ariostee I, pp. 202-204; BRUNET I, 437; DE GRASSI p. 169.