Antonio Ricci i6 Si gran volume in piccola e manigevole forma'': Bindoni and Pasini's 1535 edition of the Orlando Furioso^ Francesco Bindoni and Maffeo Pasini operated one of the largest publishing houses in Venice during the first half of the sixteenth century.' The partners specialized in popular genres such as chivalric literature, and between 1525 and 1542 they produced eight editions of Ariosto 's Orlando Furioso, a title that enjoyed wide success on the book market.^ The most important of these editions, and one which holds a prominent place in the publishing history of the Furioso in the Cinquecento, was the octavo they issued in 1535, the first edi- tion in which the text of the poem was printed with a set of paratexts.^ Lodovico Dolce, the editor of the book, prepared two dedicatory letters, an "Apologia" in which he defends Ariosto from detractors, and three other paratexts designed to assist the readers: a glossary in which he explains some difficult words found in the Furioso; a list of the additions Ariosto made in the final version of the poem; and a table of characters listing their appearance in major episodes. This was the first time that ihQ Furioso was given a paratextual apparatus, and it marked the beginning of a much-imitated editorial practice; over the course of the sixteenth century this practice would eventually see the text submerged by notes in the margins, by commentary preceding and follow- ing each canto, and by extensive critical material before and after the poem. The paratexts in the Bindoni and Pasini edition are relatively brief, but they represent a significant source for the early reception of the Furioso, since they reflect and enact the well-defined marketing strategy that Bindoni and Pasini had developed in response to the book's intended public. The principal concern of this article will be to identify how the paratexts and the typographical fea- tures of the octavo reveal the readers foreseen by Dolce and the publishers and to illustrate the ways in which the book was intended to serve the strategies those readers used in approaching the Furioso/^ The examination of the edition is made from the perspective of historical bibliography, and the analysis pro- ceeds from the assumption that the material forms by which texts are repro- duced and transmitted are fundamental to the study of their reception. A brief outline on the Furioso's history in print will provide the necessary context for the discussion to follow. By the time Bindoni and Pasini published their edition in 1535, Ariosto's work had already established itself as a 'best- QUADERSI ditaUanistica Vol. XVm, No. 2. Autunno 1997