La Morte d'Adone.: Poemetto di Teresa Bandettini, fra gli Arcadi Amarilli Etrusca,

Modena: Presso la Società Tipografica, 1790. Original edition. Very Good. Octavo (22 cm); 117, [1] pages, and four full page engraved plates hors texte by Antonio Rosaspina. Half-page vignettes by the same artist close each of the four cantos. Engraved roundel on title page. LACKS final blank leaf G/12. In plain paper covers attached to texblock with codex stitching revealed along spine. Remains of manuscript title on spine ("Bandettini"). Corners bumped. Old repairs on verso of final leaf. Negligible foxing. The whole preserved in custom-made clamshell box. References: Ferri, 33; Parenti, "Rarità bibliografiche" (1958) vol 4, p. 72.

At age 27, wildly famous for her remarkable performances of improvised poetry and dance, Teresa Bandettini published this narrative poem about love, jealousy, and grief. This work, and others to follow, betrayed the author's ambition to exceed her career as an "improvvisatrice" and compose written poetry. Indeed, Bandettini was a driven artist. She was orphaned at age seven and she grew up in miserable circumstances. At age 15, she was sent off with a dance company, and there she discovered her talent for composing well-shaped poetry spontaneously while dancing. She craved an education, spending her down time reading and studying classical languages (Eventually she studied with some of the most revered professors of the age.) Perhaps she was stung by some of the adverse criticism aimed at her and other improvising poets, that the stuff was enchanting in the moment but thin if written down. Whatever the reason, she took it upon herself to write The Death of Adonis in four cantos of epic eight-line stanzas. We know the poem was reviewed for publication and perhaps retouched by Ludovico Savioli (1729-1804), a respected academic poet of the day and chair of the history department at the University of Bologna. Savioli is no doubt the unnamed "friend" to whom Bandettini dedicates the book in the preface. The publication was a success. It was even set to music by Ferdinando Paer, but never so performed. It is gracefully illustrated with four full-page narrative scenes and four half-page vignettes by Rosaspina, and an engraved roundel on the title page.