Description

These two volumes comprise the first English translation and critical edition of the extant letters of the Neapolitan painter and satirist Salvator Rosa (1615-1673). Presented in a revised Italian transcription and a complete English translation, the letters are accompanied by extensive historical notes, a philological apparatus, a comprehensive index, appendices, and photographs of the manuscripts. A number of previously unpublished letters also appear here for the first time. Unique among early modern primary documents for their quantity and exceptional for their candour, Rosa's letters are not only a fascinating and intimate chronicle of the artist himself but also an invaluable record of the activities and aspirations of his contemporaries, ?offering useful insights into historical persons, ideas and events. An indispensable early modern primary source, comparable in significance to the letters of Michelangelo, Nicolas Poussin or Peter Paul Rubens, Rosa's letters here receive a long-overdue analysis and an English translation that seeks to make more accessible their contents, frequently impenetrable to even native Italian speakers.