When a great collector dies, everyone asks, "Who gets the books?"

Art Daily has begun tracking the dispersal of the collection of legendary bibliophile Robert S. Pirie, which went on the block at Sotheby’s earlier this month.

The Morgan library has acquired a fine copy of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, from 1591:

The copy of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso had been part of the Robert S Pirie library which was sold at auction at Sotheby’s on December 2. Closely associated with the Morgan in his lifetime, Robert Pirie (1934-2015) built an extraordinary collection of Francis Bacon, John Donne, and other English authors in the era before and after William Shakespeare. This acquisition has been made possible by a gift from Katharine J. Rayner in memory of S. Parker Gilbert.  

It is said that Queen Elizabeth ordered John Harington, her “saucy godson,” to translate the nearly forty thousand lines of verse in Orlando Furioso as punishment for having shown one of the poem’s more ribald episodes to the ladies of the court. The copy now at the Morgan belonged to Arabella Stuart, a high-born lady-in-waiting who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for having married without royal permission. At the museum it joins the first edition of 1516 and two copies of the 1584 edition with engravings by Girolamo Porro, whose designs were the basis of Harington’s illustrations.

Henry Bemis’ birthday bio for Ariosto is here.

#HenryBemisBooks #RareBooks #Charlotte #LGBT #Ariosto