Which were the publishing practices of Literary texts during the xviii and early
xix Centuries? Moving from this question, the essay analyses the work of some
Italian classical and Italian Contemporary Authors’ editors. The focus is on the
editor’s choices: on the one hand the essay examines the problems of past texts’
publishing (and the problems of their transmission); on the other hand, the
difficulties regarding the Contemporary writers’ autographs. In these fields,
both the transmission variants and the variants introduced by authors (whose
relevance is underlined by the authorial philology) are at the centre of the reflexion,
because many editors expressed their difficulty to report all the variants and
give a representation of changes. Among the publishing experiences concerning
classical texts, the essay examines different editions of Petrarch’s Rime (edited by
L.A. Muratori, A. Marsand, G. Leopardi) and of the Orlando Furioso; among the
Contemporary writers’ works, a specific attention is paid to the edition of Parini’s
Opere, edited by F. Reina. The essay introduces also the modern philological
ideas of M. Colombo, a little known editor of Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata.
Keywords
Publishing practices in Modern Age; Editing Italian Classics in xviiith and xixth
Cetury; Pre-lachmann Italian way of publishing; Textual Transmission of Italian
Classics
Casi ecdotici tra Sette e Ottocento