La Difesa del Mutio Iustinopolitano : un caso “esemplare” di bibliografia analitica

The contribution provides a bibliographical analysis of the gathering signed ✠ in the edition of Girolamo Muzio's Difesa del Mutio Iustinopolitano. Della messa. De' santi. Del papato. Contra le bestemmie di Pietro Vireto, which was printed in Pesaro in 1568 by the heirs of Bartolomeo Cesano. By means, at first, of conjectural reconstructions of the printed sheet and then thanks to a fortunate survival, it was found that an unusual imposition could be interpreted in different ways by binders, meaning that the sheet could be variously folded, sometimes in such a way as to disrupt the correct sequence of the text. The essay concludes by suggesting how purely copy-specific variants can affect the bibliographical description of the edition. [Publisher's text]