Illustrated edition with 124 plates. OVIDIUS. Le Metamorfosi.

Two volumes in Folio. 318x225 mm. Contemporary full stiff vellum, gilt neoclassical ornaments on spine, gilt title on red and green morocco labels. I: lithographic titlepage, pp. 486, 2; II: illustrated titlepage, Ovid portrait on full page, Anguillara portrait on full page, 4 plates with Seasons, 118 plates. A total of 2 titlepages and 124 lithographic plates by Antonio Zezon. Slight foxing, good specimen.

Magnificent illustrated edition. Monumental Italian version of the Metamorphoses admirably illustrated by the Neapolitan painter Antonio Zezon. The first volume contains the text by the Italian Renaissance scholar, the second volume contains the engraved plates. Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara, 1517 - 1572, a native of Sutri, was a poet and printer in Rome and Venice. His fame is mainly linked to the translation of this work. Antonio Zezon, Naples 1803 - 1881, devoted himself to lithography and publishing. Little is known about his activity as a painter.  In 1830, he participated in one of the exhibitions of the Royal Bourbon Museum with a View of the courtyard of the church of Santa Chiara. Between 1850 and 1856, he produced a work sold in booklets on The Uniforms of the Bourbon Army and Navy. He had his lithographic establishment in the Regio Palazzo Vecchio in Naples.