LA VERA CABALA DEL LOTTO

Milano: Francesco Barbini, ca. 1880. 162 x 104 mm. (6 3/8 x 4"). 528 pp.
Original printed paper wrappers (spine expertly repaired), upper cover with the image of a sleeping man in bedclothes reaching toward fortune personified as a blindfolded woman balancing on a wheel, ENTIRELY UNOPENED. With numerous full pages of woodcuts. Front cover with embossed stamp of Milanese bookseller Panzeri. ◆Tear across the cover carefully repaired, light scattered browning and foxing internally, but a very good copy of an ephemeral item.

This is a charming work based on the southern Italian folk magic tradition of "smorfia," or dream interpretation, instructing the reader on how to convert nightly visions into lottery numbers. It includes some delightful woodcut illustrations of various small scenes and types of human and animal heads, with the lottery number each should suggest: the Arab head, for example, ought to incline one toward 3, the goat toward 81, the elephant 70, and so on. Also included are extensive indexes listing people, places, and objects from "accademia" to "zuppa," all with corresponding lottery inclinations. Such a fragile and ephemeral book should not have come down to us in one piece, but the fact that it remains unopened--and therefore unread--helps explain why it is still intact..