Sotto falso nome. Domenico Imberti e i romanzi di cavalleria

This article examines an episode in early seventeenth-century Venetian publishing that illuminates the enduring success of anonymous chivalric romances in ottava rima. It focuses on the printer Domenico Imberti, who between 1607 and 1611 reissued well-known “battle books” by attributing them to plausible but false authors. While leaving the texts unchanged, Imberti added fictitious authorial names to enhance their commercial appeal in a literary market increasingly shaped by canonical figures such as Ariosto and Tasso. The study reconstructs the bibliographical history and wide circulation of these romances, highlighting how heavy readership led to significant losses and later confusion. It also traces the long-term impact of these false attributions on literary historiography. The “Imberti case” ultimately reveals the vitality of popular chivalric literature and the complex relationship between anonymity, market strategies, and the construction of literary authority.