The Long Eighteenth Century from

Venice: Luigi Pavino, 1716. Third edition. Very Good/Masquerading as the umpty-umpth treatise on chivalry and dueling, this essay by the 18th-century Veronese polymath Scipione Maffei is in fact a radical step forward in political science. It sustains that qualities of virtue and nobility do not derive from birthrights or from family lineage, but are earned through professional skills… Read more

Reggio Emilia: Nella tipografia della società, presso l'autore, 1811. First edition. Good/Part I only of a three-part work Hebrew and Italian dictionary, including the introduction and the entries of the first half of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph through lamed). Far more than a word list, each entry is an exploration into the implications of the vocabulary. From modest origins,… Read more

Reggio Emilia: G. Davolio for Anania Coen, 1805. Very Good/After decades of ghetto confinement and yellow-hat stigmatization, the Jews of Reggio in Emilia enjoyed a period of liberalism in Napoleon's Cisalpine Republic, established in 1797. In this environment, Rabbi Anania Coen, melamed and principal of Reggio's Hebrew school, became interested in publishing secular literature. In association with Giuseppe Davolio,… Read more

Venice: n.p., 1749. Very Good/The microscope of the title is more or less metaphorical. In the introductory remarks, the author claims to be an man of advanced age and poor eyesight. The microscope, he says, is an extraordinary instrument that permits him to see Truth even in the smallest things, with pupils as lively as in youth. The text… Read more

Brescia: dalla stamperia della nobile congregazione delegata, 1800. First edition. Good/Compendious history of the waterways of Brescia, including the three navigable rivers and the system of irrigation canals. Interesting history of water rights, engineering, and the social impact of waterways.. Quarto (28 cm); 140, [2] pages. Engraved crest of the city's department of rivers and… Read more

Venice: Antonio Zatta, 1780-1782. Very Good/Audacious as it may seem to publish an author's "works" when that author lived another 26 years, this collection includes the bases of Bettinelli's lasting fame: the "lettere virgiliane," in which Virgil recants his devotion to Dante and marks Petrarch as elegant, but repetitive (and what admirer of Petrarch can say he is wrong?);… Read more

Venice: Francesco Sansoni, 1792-94. Very Good. Octavo (21 cm); 22 volumes. Half-titles present. Engraved portrait frontispiece, Woodcut headpieces, initials, and tail-pieces. 21 copper engraved plates, most of them folded, including maps, plans, and images of monuments. Shoulder notes. In remarkable woodblock-printed Remondini decorated paper composed of green ovals and pink-brown six-pointed… Read more

Vercelli: Tipografia Patria, 1783. Very Good/Historical novel by the theorist of Italian enlightenment, first published in 1780. Unusual Vercelli imprint from the presses established and directed by Giovanni Antonio Ranza (1741-1801), who attempted unsuccessfully to inspire revolt against the local nobility before being forced to flee his native Vercelli for Switzerland, and ultimately to France.. 21 cm;… Read more

Zurich: Arcade Presse, 1963. #111 of an edition of 185 copies, signed by the artist.. Folio (43 cm); 26 leaves, including 17 monochrome and 9 two-color lithographs printed on the hand presses of Emil Matthieu, Zurich. (The lithograph stones were ground down after the edition was completed.) Letterpress text in 16-point Caslon. Loose in portfolio as… Read more

Verona: Tipografia Bisesti, 1827. Good/Handbook for the rules of the early modern card games Piquet and Tarot, and for the 19th-century card game Commerce. Example in the Marciana is the only other copy recorded.. 71, [1] pages, including one diagram in text. In original printed wraps, enclosed in modern (?) marbled paper . Ink reference… Read more

American or British, After 1760. Very Good/Manuscript 18th-century game or puzzle which allows whoever knows the key to accurately guess anyone's age (or chosen number in a "pick-a-number" scenario). We won't divulge the secret--but it has to do with binomial number systems--and it works! Similar magic age tables persist to the present day… Read more

London: Printed for J[ohn] B[arber] and sold by Aaron Ward, etc., 1729. Second edition, corrected. Memorial volumes published upon the death of Dryden's patron John Sheffield, the Duke of Buckingham, first published in 1723. Two of Sheffield's essays ("Feast of the Gods," and "Some Account of the Revolution") were left out of the memorial, and they have been… Read more

Paris: Chez Ganeau, 1751. (Numbers for January to June 1751). Newsy monthly journal of literature and current events that was published from 1717 to 1776, this issue covering the first six months of 1751. . Octavo (17 cm); 480 pages. Six parts in one volume, each with separate title page. Woodcut vignette (of Verdun) on… Read more

London: John Murray, 1831. Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson is a book that names names. Johnson, during his long life, came into contact with virtually everyone in British society who left a footprint, and Boswell names them all. John Wilson Croker's edition of Boswell's great biography-offered here in its initial printing-inspired something of a fashion for collectors… Read more

Collection of 31 engraved ex libris from French private libraries. Most are identified either in plate or in pencil notations. Five of the bookplates are mounted on card stock, another 13 are mounted on heavy stock intended to be menu blanks for a late 19th- or early 20th-century bar or café. The rest are mounted… Read more

Reggio Emilia: by the author, 5582 [i.e., 1822]. First edition. Very Good/From modest origins, Anania Coen emerged as a principle Jewish intellectual who established a Hebrew school and a Hebrew press in his native Reggio Emilia. Later he became the rabbi of the Jewish community of Florence and established one of the first Hebrew printing presses there. … Read more

London: Macmillan, 1863. First edition. Bentley said it better than we can: "Never has an important literary reputation been posthumously established so effectively, instantaneously, and forcefully.... Gilchrist's title, 'Pictor Ignotus,' had not been mere showmanship. Blake had been unknown, and Gilchrist made him sensationally well-known. From 1863 on, Blake took an unchallenged place in literary and… Read more

Napoli (i.e. Padova) , 1737 (i.e, 1739). Pirated edition of the first edition.. Reference: Arato, #3. Very Good/An eighteenth century best seller, Algarotti's "Newtonianism for Ladies" poses the "Opticks" in a series of dialogues with Emilie du Chatelet. It was an instant success, and it inspired many imitations. It was also one of the main channels through… Read more

London: A. Wilde, 1764. The title, acting as a sort of table of contents, continues: "... Shewing the effects of the planets and other astronomical constellations ... Together with The husbandman's practice ... And the shepherd's perpetual calendar for the weather. Also a brief discourse on the natural causes of meteors ... And observations on the weather ...… Read more

Rome: Stamperia Pagliarini, 1755. First edition thus. New/Splendid "Bolognese School" edition of the Offices of the Virgin, illustrated throughout with full page engravings after the Bolognese masters who emanated from the Caracci studios in the 16th and 17th centuries, and who defined European artistic sensibilities for subsequent generations. This copy bears the bookplate of Henry J. Heinz (1844-1919),… Read more