Quarto. [24], 255pp, [1]. With an engraved title page and 20 full- page engraved illustrations in the text by Francesco Valesio and Giacomo Valegio. Later gilt-tooled half-calf, marbled paper boards, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece. Extremities rubbed, spine dulled. Later bookplate of the Gaddesden library (and therefore likely previously in the library of English courtier, diplomat and alchemist Thomas Henshaw (1618-1700), whose books had descended there via his Halsey relatives), with pencilled shelf-marks, to front endpapers.

The epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata (Parma, 1581) was the best-known work of Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), Italian vernacular poet ranking amongst Dante, Petrarch and Ariosto in that nation's literary canon. Taking Virgil for its model and the First Crusade for its theme, it claims Godfrey of Bouillon for its hero and the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 as its climax.