Descrizione

Two volumes, 12mo (165x99 mm). Engraved title page, viii, 300 pp.; engraved title page, 300 [i.e. 312] pp. Pages 217-228 repeated in pagination. Issue with viii preliminary pages in volume one; another issue has instead xvi pages with the addition of a dedication to Dorotea Regio, Marquise of Casteldosrius and Baroness of Santapau, signed by the editor Annibale Antonini, and the same preface reset. Volume two here issued without the final appendix of 8 pages containing the canzonetta “La libertà” by Pietro Metastasio. The engraved titles are attributed to Charles Nicolas Cochin (1715-1790). Contemporary stiff vellum, morocco lettering piece on spine, red sprinkled edges, green silk bookmark. Some light browning and foxing, overall a good, genuine copy.
First edition of this anthology of poems by Italian authors, edited by abbot Annibale Antonini, who taught Italian for nearly 25 years in Paris, where he also worked as a grammarian, lexicographer, translator, and editor of classics. Volume one contains mostly poems by 16th- and 17th-century authors, while volume two gathers rhymes by contemporary authors, including a poem by Giambattista Vico (p. 176) and a poem by Ludovico Antonio Muratori (p. 224 [i.e. 236], already appeared in Rime scelte di poeti illustri, Lucca, 1717-1719, see. T. Sorbelli, Bibliografia muratoriana, Modena, 1943, I, p. 116). The collection also includes several poems by female authors, such as Elena Riccoboni (p. 78), Faustina Maratti Zappi (7 poems, pp. 96-102), Giovanna Caracciolo (p. 145), Petronilla Paolini Massimi (p. 256), Prudenza Gabrielli Capizucci (2 poems, pp. 270-271), and Teresa Pamfilia (2 poems, pp. 282-283).
Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\RCAE\014540; B. Croce-F. Nicolini, Bibliografia vichiana, Naples, 1947-1948, I, p. 105, no. 16.