8vo. In two volumes. xxx, [2], 304; 307pp, [1]. With an engraved portrait frontispiece to Vol. I. Contemporary green calf-backed marbled boards, gilt, marbled edges. Light rubbed and marked, spines sunned. Marbled endpapers, contemporary book-labels to FEPs, marginal loss to leaf B6, Vol. II, lightly foxed.

A collection of 50 Florentine novellas attributed to fourteenth-century author Giovanni Fiorentino; written between 1378 and 1385, and first printed in Milan in 1558. The work appears to have served as a source for Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Merchant of Venice - with one tale featuring an Italian merchant and a Jewish moneylender. Though the imprint states this edition to have been printed in London, Livorno is the more probable publishing location. This edition includes notes by Italian classicist Anton Maria Salvini (1653-1729) and a life of Fiorentino by G. Poggioli.