RICCHI, Agostino.

      Venice, Bernardino de Vitalibus, 14 September 1533. First edition of this verse comedy, notable forbeing the first play written entirely in hendecasyllabic verse (the superbissimum carmen, as Dante called it) and also for introducing the daring innovation of stretching the action over a whole year's time. Written when the author was barely twenty, it was adapted for its first presentation to suit the occasion of the meeting of Charles V and Pope Clement VII in Bologna, to which place the action was shifted. Act V sees one of the principle characters "returned from Spain, dressed in the habit of a pilgrim and speaking Spanish, enter into praise for the Emperor and the Pope".The author's dedication to Cardinal Ippolito dei Medici is followed by a long and interesting introduction by the Dante scholar Alessandro Vellutello explaining the basic ideas of the play and its place in dramatic literature. Allacci 782 knows only this edition.