FRUGONI BETTINELLI Versi sciolti di tre eccellenti moderni autori con alcune lettere non piu’ stampate.

Melzi, III, 212 ; Lapiccirella, 172 ; Lanckoronska, 113 ; Morazzoni ne cite que la seconde édition publiée en 1766.

First edition.

A handsome 18th-century Venetian illustrated book containing compositions by the poet and librettist Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni (1692-1768), epistles by Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764) and twelve short poems by the Jesuit writer Saverio Bettinelli (1718-1808). These verses are preceded by ten letters from Bettinelli, signed Publio Virgilio Marone, criticising “the abuses introduced into Italian poetry”.

The delicate and lively illustrations include a frontispiece, a title vignette, an out-of-text plate and 45 culs-de-lampe engraved by Pietro Monaco after Pietro Antonio Novelli.

A very good copy with full margins, in its original plain boards, top cover partly detached, binding weak. Three misprinted verses have been previously ironed in pen (f. G3 r); old notes in ink on the last endpaper.