Giovanni Battista Ciotti

[2] In 1597 he adopted as an emblem of his workshop "at the sign of the Dawn", represented by a celestial woman among the clouds with a star on her head, who precedes the sun, reducing the night darkness and dispensing light.

From 1607 to 1615 Ciotti joined forces with Bernardo Giunta, giving rise to an enterprise which published at least 87 editions in nine years; the two used a sumptuous letterpress representing Tuscany with the ducal crown on the head and the Giunti lily in the left hand.

Alongside legal books and ancient classics, Ciotti published numerous editions of scientific texts and, above all, of literary works and religious and theological writings.

On his first visit to Venice in 1602 Giambattista Marino made friends with Ciotti, who immediately began a long association with him by undertaking the publication in that same year of the first and second parts of his Rime.

Tommaso Stigliani narrates that starting from 1616 Ciotti, having broken his association with Giunti, "moved his printing press to Sicily"; on the island, however, the publisher collapsed "there, in the narrow space of six months he failed, went mad, blinded and died".