Note 544:B — Chapter III
Reading edition
Of the Italian tales it may be useful to enumerate the best and most celebrated of those which were written during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; as, in some shape or other, most of them became familiar to English readers before the death of Shakspeare.
1. Cento Novelle Antike. The earliest collection of Italian novels.
2. Boccacio il Decamerone. Venet. Valdarfer. 1471. This, which is the first edition, was purchased at the Roxburghe sale, by the Marquis of Blandford, for 2260l.!
3. Novelle di Sacchetti. Sacchetti died in 1408.
4. Masuccio, Il Novellino, nel quale si contengono cinquanta Novelle.—Best edition that of 1484, folio.
5. Sabadino, Porretane, dove si narra Novelle settanta una.
6. Sansovino, Cento Novelle scelte da più nobili Scrittori.
7. Giovanni Fiorentino, il Pecorone, nel quale si contengono cinquanta Novelle antiche. First and best edition, 1559.
8. Novelle del Bandello, 3 vols. 4to. 1554.
9. Straparola, le piacevoli Notte. 2 vols. 1557.
10. Giraldi Cinthio, gli Hecatomithi, (Cento Novelle.) 4 vols.
11. Erizzo, le Sei Giornate, (trenta cinque Novelle) Edizione prim. 4to. Ven. 1567.
12. Parabosco, i Diporti, o varo Novelle, Venet. 1558.
13. Granucci, la piacivol Notte, et lieto Giorno (undici Novelle), Venet. 1574.
14. Novelle di Ascanio de Mori. 4to. 1585.
15. Malespini, Ducento Novelle, 4to.