Search Results: Titles starting with I from Rodger Friedman Rare Book Studio

Florence: Giunti, 1552. Second edition. Very Good. Octavo (15 cm); 44 leaves. Woodcut printer's device on title-page with variant at the end; woodcut initials. Bound in later (c19?) plain sky-blue boards, titled in manuscript on spine. References: Gamba, 458 ("Suol tenersi in maggiore stima questa ristampa si per la leggiadria de' carratteri, che per la diligenza nella correzione"); Adams, F-496; Decia & Camerini, I Giunti di Firenze, 287; Seroni, "Firenzuola," #4. Second edition of this five-act comedy which Gamba notes "is held in greater esteem ... because of the beauty of the typography and the diligence of the redaction." We are grateful to our colleagues at E. K. Schreiber Books for turning up a study which notes that Firenzuola was an important influence in promoting the equality of women in the arts: "Firenzuola's dialogue emphasizes the equality of women, the reciprocity of love, and the value of sexuality independent of its reproductive function. In doing so, he provides us with… Read More

Bologna: Bartolomeo Borghi, 1747. First edition. Good. Octavo (19cm); viii, 314 pages (misnumbered in last gathering--a point of the first printing), and XVI full page engraved plates, along with several woodcut tables in text. In 18th-century two-tone woodblock decorated paper over boards. Paper label on spine worn and illegible. Spine darkened and faded. Endleaves renewed. Some spots and stains throughout. References: Honeyman 47 ("Contains arithmetical puzzles, tricks with cards and dice, problems relating to the theory of numbers, sleight of hand, etc." ); Riccardi I, 15 ("oltre i giuochi numerici contiene ancora dilettevoli giuochi di prestigio"); Caillet 1, #146 ("Ouvrage sur les nombres et sur les secrets et recettes, enrichi des figures gravées hors texte.") First edition of the first book on prestidigitation printed in Italy. The text is a handbook of dice and card games, mathematical riddles, sleight-of-hand, and magic, illustrated by 16 engraved plates and several tables. Among… Read More

Napoli: Dai tipi di Cirillo, 1843. Very Good. 14cm; 9 parts in 3 volumes, each with separate title page and pagination: 108, 108, 108; 94, 96, 96; 96, 108, 100 pages. Woodcut frontispiece portrait of Manzoni. Leather spines over green percoline embossed with vine scroll motif. Gilt titles and ornaments on spines. Pink endleaves. Reproduces the text of the 1827 version of the great Italian historical novel. Manzoni, frustrated by piracies and attentive to the powers of language to help create political unity, had revised the 1827 text into a more "Florentine" version, published in 1840. This charming Naples imprint shows that the original version remained current alongside the later version.

Bad Goisern: Friedrich Neugebauer, 1967. 31 cm; [21] leaves. Red and green ink. Text of the poems reproduced the calligraphy of Friedrich Neugebauer from a 1947 manuscript. One of 200 copies, this copy not numbered. Bound in flexible leather, a bit splayed. Blemishes on fore-edge, else very good.

Riga and Leipzig: Johann Freidrich Hartsnoch, 1784-91. First edition. Very Good. 4 volumes in quarto (20 cm); [16], 318, [4]; [6], 344; [4], 368; [4], 340 pages. Lacks final leaf of volume 1, blank but for printer's name. Text in German black letter type. Bound in quarter sheep over flecked paper-covered boards. Leather title and volume labels. Raised bands and gilt floral tooled stamp on spines. Edges stained red. Joints strengthened with Japanese paper; corners reinforced. Some minor loss at heels. Various old owners' inscriptions on title pages. See PMM 216: "In his Ideen ziur Philophie der Geschiche der Menschheit ... Herder amalgamated the theories of Vico and Kant--his own master." Johann Gottfried von Herder's "Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind," laid the philosophical (and, in his view, historical) foundations for ideals of nationalism. While for Herder the problem of nationalism concerned the unification of diverse German states, his ideas and arguments informed more… Read More

Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1890. First edition. Very Good. 20 cm; 213 pages and folding table. Original printed wraps. Inscribed by the author on upper wrap to Fausto Lusinio, the scholar of Oriental languages at the University of Florence who edited the Hebrew and Arabic texts of Averroes. Classic study of Francesco Redi's text, with an appendix of Redi's unpublished poetry.

Venice: Vettor de Rabani [Vittore Ravani] e compagni, 1538. Acceptable. Octavo (16cm); [5], 193 leaves, lacks final two leaves, blank but for printer's device on recto of BB7. Initial spaces with guide letters; printer's device (two-tailed siren) on title page. Italic type throughout. Bound in nineteenth-century green cloth with polished calf backstrip, titled in gilt on spine. Lower margin of title page excised early on and repaired, with place and year of publication inscribed in ink. Generally clean and fresh copy with occasional discoloration in first and last leaves, and along edges. Not in Adams. Early edition of the Book of the Courtier (one decade after the first edition) printed by Vittore Ravani, who worked his late father Pietro's print shop with his mother, Luchina, during the 1530s. (They had help from Melchiore Sessa.) Most of their output centered on reprinting humanist bestsellers, such as the present title, Ariosto's Satires, Benivieni's Ars Moriendi, Erasmus's Adages and so on. Read More

Venice: Giovanni Battista Ciotti, 1602. First edition. Leather. Very Good. Folio (31 cm); [12], 524, 395 [i.e. 375], lacks two unnumbered leaves errata at end. Title page in red and black. Printer's device on title page and colophon. Text printed in two columns. Woodcut head pieces; initials. Rebacked in period style, retaining eighteenth-century boards in flecked calf gilt with double fillets. Title page and colophon a little worn, but contents generally clean and bright. Few marginal worm trails. Discrete 19th-century library blindstamp on title page, colophon, and few other leaves. Reference: Bruni & Evans, 4042; Michel, VI, 97; Fontanini I,80 ("il primo Vocabolario pieno e metodico"); Gamba 2757 (1617 ed.); Vinciana 3839 (1656 ed., "uno dei migliori vocabolari italiani pubblicati prima della Crusca.") The first methodical Italian dictionary based on literary examples, il Memoriale della lingua appeared ten years before the Accademia della Crusca issued its famous dictionary. Gamba… Read More

London , 1763. Sixth edition, the first to include the Giudizio d'Amore.. Fine. Octavo (17 cm); 104 pages. Typographical vignette on title page, and typographical headpiece and initial on A4. In three-color woodblock-printed decorated wraps, A wide-margined, largely unblemished copy. Reference: Melzi, Dizionario di opere anonime e pseudonime, I, 243. One of the defining voices of the Italian enlightenment, Francesco Algarotti traveled widely through the courts and capitals of Europe, associating with its principal scientists, artists, and intellectuals. In Great Britain, he was made a member of the Royal Society, engaged with Alexander Pope, and frequented the salon of Mary Wortley Montagu and John Hervey. (Montagu became the centerpiece of Algarotti's popular "Newtonianismo per le dame.") The work presented here, first published in 1745, was frequently reprinted and translated into several languages. It is a novelistic essay (or a didactic novel) on love and courtship in the various nations… Read More

Lugano: Stamperia Elvetica, 1760. Very Good. 17 cm; 11 (of 12) monthly issues, January through March, May through December, continuously paginated 1-208, 275-924 (lacks April, pp. 209-274), and woodcut title page in each number. All issues variously bound in polychrome or monochrome woodblock printed wraps, mostly in floral patterns, stab-sewn. Some leaves darkened but overall bright and clean. Reference: Motta, Bibliografia storica ticinese, p. 122, #1. Il Corrier Zoppo ("The Limping Messenger") ran from December 1756 to December 1762, out of Lugano, Switzerland. Each issue, in uniform format, presents news of the world, with dispatches from the various capital cities of Europe in terms of military developments, changes in political leadership, marriages and deaths among nobility, and some of what might be called investigative reporting, such as the lengthy article (pp. 344-371) on the kidnapping of a papal emissary to Corsica by the Genoese (that ultimately led to Genoa divesting itself of… Read More

Milano: co' tipi di Luigi Mussi, 1811. Limited ed. Folio (460 x 310 mm); LIII, [I], 157, [3] pages. Edition limited to 150 copies, each numbered in manuscript, with a description of the paper stock, and signed by the typographer Luigi Mussi. Green cloth backstrip over green-and-black marbled paper over pasteboard. Paper label on spine titled in manuscript in block letters. Corners bumped, slight wear to edges. Reference: Bustico 61 ("superba edizione"). Interesting. Mussi published the text of Parini's masterpiece twice before, in 1805 (in smaller folio) and in 1808 (in octavo), both during the period he spent on his own in Parma after leaving his apprenticeship in Bodoni's shop. By the time he set up his shop in Milan (in 1806, while his shop in Parma was still active) he seems to have arrived at the idea, apparently independently, of the modern "limited edition," of choosing special paper, an impressive format, and introducing a personalized statement of limitation numbered and signed in… Read More

Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1992. Very Good. 8vo; 223 p. Cloth in d.j. Essays on the history of book production in the Adriatic basin from the 15th century to the 18th century. Byzantine, Islamic and Western culture meet on the Adriatic.

N.p. ; Venice: N.p.; Leonardo e Giammario Basaglia, [1803?]; 1784. First edition(?). Very Good. 18 cm; Two titles bound together (Parini's "Poemetti" bound second). 559, [1 blank] ; 162 pages. Half title of second volume: "Poemetti di Giuseppe Parini." Bound in contemporary half vellum over patterned-paper boards. Leather label titled in gilt. Abrasion on upper board. Lower board dusty and somewhat discolored. Reference: Bustico, Bibliografia di Giuseppe Parini, #48. Parini has been called "the greatest Italian poet of his day and the most complete representative of Enlightenment literature" (Cambridge History of Italian Literature). The poems collected here are his life's work. Parini published the first two poems, "Morning" and "Afternoon," in quick succession in 1763 and 1765. He intended to finish them with "The evening" and publish them all together under the title "The Day," as a single satirical poem illustrating the daily life of a young Milanese noble. But "Evening" never… Read More

Venice: n.p., 1749. Very Good. 18cm; 62, [2 blank] pages. Woodcut vignette on title page. In plain pastepaper wraps, titled in manuscript on lower wrap. Untrimmed, wide-margined copy, bright and fresh. Light waterstain affects lower marginal corner of three leaves. 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 has much less to do with scientific instruments than it does with social criticism, calling out popular vanities and hypocrisy. The optic is trained on society, not on fruit flies. 18th-century café reading. Extremely rare.

Bassano del Grappa: Remondini, ca 1710. Fine. 1 leaf, 34 x 22 cm. Two images, each within palm-frond borders, and each underscored with six-line legends in verse. "In Bassano, per il Remondini" in lower center frame. Matted and protected by mylar guard. References: Alberto Milano, "Le Ventole," in Remondini: Un editore del settecento, pp. 202-203, #7; From the house of Remondini in Bassano, a print that actually pairs two popular images: the "world upside down" and the "dance of death." From the cycle of the "world upside down," we see the donkey that drives a man who labors under the weight of two barrels. The "dance of death" image shows what may be a courtship scene, but the legend tells us that it shows a young man consulting an African fortune-teller while his true fortune--Death--stands at his shoulders. A relic.

Milano: Giovanni Giuseppe Destefanis, 1815. First edition, signed.. Very Good. Octavo (23 cm); [2], 44 pages. Signed by the author on verso of title page, with a brief hand-written note in apparently the same hand at the base of page 56. Pages untrimmed. In red and green woodblock-printed wraps in the style of Remondini paper designs. References: Gamba 2533; DBI volume III. The prolific librettist Angelo Anelli (1761-1820) wrote nasty, unbridled satires that tended to draw down disdain from his contemporaries (Foscolo hated him) and censorship from the authorities. Over a seven-year period (1811-1818) he produced periodical installments of a Juvenalian satire in ottava rima, challenging the entire literary establishment of his time. The parts were only collected into book form in an edition printed in Naples in 1820, the year of Anelli's death. Milan imprints of the individual parts, signed by the author, are rare. Gamba notes Anelli's alienation from the good taste of his contemporaries,… Read More

Padova: Carlo Conzatti, 1795. Original edition. Very Good. Octavo (16 cm); 29, [3 blank] pages, in one gathering (A\16). Woodcut device on title page, two woodcut headpieces showing putti in architectural setting. Bound in unusual red and orange mottled pastepaper. Slight blemishes to lower edge of wraps. No references found, no other copies located. Author's name from dedicatory letter. All of the information we have about the two cantatas collected here comes from internal evidence. We find no external records except for the presence of a manuscript in library in Rome of a symphony and an opera by one "Paresi," no first name given. The texts here were ostensibly performed for the "podestà" (effectively, the mayor) of Padua, Girolamo Giustiniani, who must have attended graduation festivities for young Niccolò Sant'agnese, of one of Padua's prominent families. The verse (in my judgement) is unmemorable, but we cannot tell how it sounded when set to music (now lost). Carlo Conzatti's page… Read More

ca. 1880. Good. Albumen-silver photograph on paper, 355 x 270 mm. Signed and titled in plate. Toned to sepia. Some spotting visible in sky portion of photograph. Mounted on board excised from album.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881. First American edition. Fine. 26 cm; xvi, 800 pages frontispiece, folding map, 6 folding plans and elevations, 16 leaves of plates, and numerous illustrations in text. Alternate binding in half morocco over marbled boards, marbled edges. Never read, perhaps never opened. With a preface, appendices, and notes by Professor Rudolf Virchow, Max Mu¨ller, A.H. Sayce, J.P. Mahaffy, H. Brugsch-Bey [etc.].

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1896. First edition. Very Good. Oblong 24 x 31 cm; iii pages, 44 folding photographic half-tone plates mounted on cloth. Atlas volume only. Bound in calf over marbled boards. Photographic record intended to illustrate the U.S. Government report on the condition of seal life on the rookeries of the Pribilof Islands of Alaska, and to pelagic sealing in Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean, in the years 1893-1895 (published in the same year).