Su una raccolta di fogli per ventarole stampati a Bologna da Lelio Dalla Volpe

Fan sheets or ventarole are typographic products very widespread in Italy between15th and 18th centuries, but it is difficult to study them because they have been almost totally destroyed. The discovery of a codex containing a collection of 57 sheets printed in Bologna by Lelio Dalla Volpe between 1720 and 1739 now allows us to better focus on some characteristics of these ancient prints. This collection is kept in the Library of the Patriarchal Seminary of Venezia and it perhaps belonged to Bartolomeo Gamba; it’s also important because it contains many editions of unknowns editions printed by Dalla Volpe. The ventarole contain verses written in Italian (but sometimes also in the Venetian or Bolognese dialect), which often are entitled canzonetta o canzone. The texts are almost always anonymous, but in some cases it has been possible to attribute them to authors such as Paolo Rolli, Pietro Metastasio, Girolamo Baruffaldi or Domenico Bartoli (but there are also works by Faustino Perisauli and Matteo Landuzzi). These compositions, which usually concern love affairs and moral reflections, suggest that there was a "literature for ventarole", consisting of texts also published as pamphlets or as texts printed in collections of works by individual authors. The texts printed on the fan sheets were intended for reading but they could also be sung following the melody of famous arias, such as the Aria della Spagnoletta. The musical use of the ventarole is also relevant as an attestation of Dalla Volpe's interest in printing musical material since the early years of his activity.