Descripción

2 vols., in 1., 12mo., contemporary tree calf, sides with elaborate gilt frame border, elaborately tooled gilt back with two red leather labels, marbled edges, patterned endpapers, skilfully rebacked with original backstrip laid down, corners of upper board bruised else a very good, fresh, clean copy. With separate half-titles to each book, and the early nineteenth century trade ticket of Berard & Mondon, ('French, Spanish, Italian Books, etc') of New York. French issue of the major work of Alessandro Tassoni (Modena 1565-1635). First published in 1614 this mock-heroic poem, which translates loosely as 'the captured bucket', uses the theft of a well-bucket to satirise petty warfare between the towns of Modena and Bologna. The satire belongs to the same category as the ancient 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice', de Vega's 'Gatomaquia', Boileau's 'Lutrin' and Pope's 'Rape of the Lock'. 'The poem is pervaded by an exuberant, satirical, and often brilliant humour. There are passages in which the humour is sustained and cumulative, and others in which an apparent seriousness finds its climate in a sudden hilarious absurdity' (Wilkins, 'Italian Literature', pp. 298-9). Rare