About this Item
Two parts in one volume, 16° (130x85 mm). [4], 138; [8], 139-264 pages. The first leaf of the second part is blank. Frontispiece with an engraved medallion portrait of Foscolo, in bistro (85x63 mm), uncounted in the foliation. Contemporary mottled calf, over pasteboards. Smooth spine, compartments underlined by double gilt fillet and decorated with floral tools in gold; title in gilt lettering. Upper joint somewhat worn, lower extremity of spine slightly damaged. A good copy, foxing throughout, the upper margin of a few leaves waterstained. The manuscript note 'Par Ugo Foscolo' on the recto of the front flyleaf.Provenance: ownership inscription, partially trimmed, on the recto of the blank leaf signed [χ]1, separating the two parts, 'M Antonio Centura' [?]; on the verso of the title-page of the second part 'Comprato li 18:7bre 1802'. The extremely rare first edition – in the 'Austrian' issue known as '1799A' – of Foscolo's masterpiece, which is considered the first Italian epistolary novel. Foscolo's Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis) is a semi-autobiographical work; in epistolary form, it narrates the impossible love of the young patriot Jacopo Ortis for a girl named Teresa, set against a backdrop of the Napoleonic wars in northern Italy. The epilogue is tragic as sentimental disappointment and political disillusionment lead the young Jacopo to commit suicide. The work has a very complex publishing history, in which issue 1799A plays a fundamental role. Foscolo had been writing the work between the summer of 1798 and the beginning of the following year, and it was set to be published by the Bolognese printer Jacopo Marsigli. Foscolo then joined the Napoleonic Army, interrupting the text at letter forty-five. Marsigli, the printer, decided to assemble the material regardless, and he asked the young law student Angelo Sassoli (b. 1773) to continue writing the story up until the epilogue. The book came to light – under the title Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis – around 30 June 1799, although the title-page bears the year '1798 Anno vii' as the date of publication. This first issue, known as Ortis 1798, was evidently not distributed: only three complete copies are recorded, these being preserved in the Archiginnasio in Bologna, the Biblioteca di Storia moderna e contemporanea in Rome, and the Biblioteca Comunale in Treviso. At the same time, the city of Bologna was occupied by the Austrian army, and Marsigli attempted to conform his still undistributed publication, which was replete with political statements and references to religious questions, to the new political context. In order to overcome the reactionary Austrian control he assembled a 'new Ortis' – known as issue 1799A – which appeared on the market around August 1799 under the more 'reassuring' title of Vera storia di due amanti infelici, ossia Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (The True Story of Two Unhappy Lovers, i.e., The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis). Marsigli re-used the 1798 quires containing the Foscolo-Sassoli text, and organised the Letters into two parts, each of which was preceded by new preliminaries, including the Annotazioni, a sort of 'justification' of what could be considered suspicious. He also eliminated the more delicate or dangerous passages of the Ortis 1798, inserting instead substitute bifolia or single leaves (cancels). After Napoleon's victory in Marengo on 14 June 1800, the French government was restored in Bologna, and the enterprising Marsigli decided to distribute a third and more 'revolutionary' issue of Foscolo's work – issue 1799B –, assembling copies and leaves from the two previous issues, Ortis 1798 and 1799A. Foscolo had been unaware of Marsigli's various attempts at publishing his epistolary novel; it was only in September 1800 that he came into possession of a copy of the Ortis, in its 1799B iteration. The publication was, however, firmly refuted by Fos. Seller Inventory # 0000000008396
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