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FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 12mo, 152 x 90 mms., pp. [64], with a very curious register, and leaves a8 and b1 bound out of place after b7, but complete, with engraved frontispiece, attractively bound in later dark red sheepskin, boards with four gilt corner pieces of a bird chasing a comet, edges tooled with a leafy branch roll, spine spine gilt to a floral motif, a very good presentation copy from the Duc de Massa with his bookplate and an inscription in the hand of his secretary, Alberto Bacchi della Lega, identify the author as the Marquis Castor Montalbani (1670- 1732), a distinguished poet, astrologer, as well as military architect. The binding may also be a presentation as the tooling of the boards is similar to details on the bookplate; light tide mark to some pages, small repaired worm hole at end, and the presentation inscription slightly trimmed by the binder with the loss of a couple of letters but not the sense. There is a copy of this book with an identical inscription in library of the the Casa Carducci (former home of the celebrated Italian poet Giosue Carducci ) which was also presented by the Duc de Massa. The title of Duke of Massa and the Empire, named after the province of Massa and Carrara in Italy, was conferred on 15 August 1809 by Napoleon I to Claude Ambroise Regnier ( 1746 - 1814 ), Grand Judge and Minister of Justice from 1802 to 1813 ( Wikipedia). The poem, in sestets, rhyming abbacc, bawdily mocks the virtue of the Goddess Diana. Copac locates a copy in the BL, and there are copies at UCLA and Harvard in the USA, and one copy in Italy. Uncommon. Seller Inventory # 9110
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