Early Continental Books from Libreria Antiquaria Rappaport
- By Michael Stillman
Antiquarian European works from Rappaport.
This month we received our first catalogue from Libreria Antiquaria Rappaport, their Catalogo 195. Their catalogues may be new to our reviews, but Rappaport has been selling books for over a century. They are located in Rome, Italy, in a building appropriate to their focus, a quite old Italian structure. The bookseller primarily features early continental books, from incunabula through the 19th century. The heaviest concentration of books is in the Italian language, but we find many in other languages, including Latin, French, and English. The catalogue itself is in Italian, but there are numerous notes in English that will enable an English-speaker to make their way through its pages. Here are some of the antiquarian works we found.
Item 74 is a guidebook to the ruins of ancient Rome from a time that is now fairly ancient itself. The author was Bartolomeo Marliano, born in 1488, who came to Rome after his years as a student. He wrote several books, but this one is his best known: Antiquae Romae Topographia, libri septem. Published in 1534, it is a guide to the ancient structures of Rome, compiled both from the works of others and his own archeological observations. Several more editions and translations to other languages would appear in the following years of this popular book, but this is the first edition. Priced at €2,000 (euros, or approximately $2,533 U.S. Dollars).
Italy is noted for producing some of the greatest works of science, architecture, and art, but children's books? You may not think of Italy as the source of this sort of book, and yet, here is one everyone knows, even in lands far across the sea: Le avventure di Pinocchio. Storia di unburattino. This is, of course, the story of Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who came to life, but suffered from a certain mysterious condition that made it hard to disguise when he told a lie. The author of this tale was Carlo Lorenzini, though he is better known by his pen name of Carlo Collodi. First published in 1883, this is the 1890 fifth and final edition issued under Collodi's control, the author dying that year, his character's coming international fame not yet known. Item 27. €2,500 (US $3,168).
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Early Continental Books from Libreria Antiquaria Rappaport
- By Michael Stillman
Three women spent 37 days in this cramped stable.
Item 103 is a story of survival: Ragionamento sopra il fatto avvenuto in Bergemoletto, by Ignazio Somis, published in 1758. Three women from the small village of Bergemoletto were trapped in a very small stable by an avalanche of snow on March 19, 1755. They were not found until 37 days later. They subsisted on a small amount of milk, living in the cramped, poorly ventilated, foul-smelling quarters. Somis' detailed description of the ordeal has enabled this book to provide a very early look at what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder. €2,200 (US $2,786).
Item 24 is an account of an amazing engineering feat, for its time, or any time: Monument élevé à la gloire de Pierre-le-Grand, ou relation des traveaux et des moyens mechaniques qui ont été employés pour transporter à Pétersbourg by Carburi de Ceffalonie, published in 1777. For those not up on French, it tells of a monument built to Peter the Great in St. Petersburg. However, it is not so much about the statue, though that is a magnificent depiction of the Russian Emperor on horseback. Peter's successor, Catherine (also “the Great”) commissioned the French sculptor, Étienne Falconet, to create the massive statue. This book is focused not on the statue itself but the base. It consists of a carved rock, the largest rock ever to be moved by man. It weighed, at least at the beginning of its journey, around 1,500 tons. It was found in Finland, half submerged in marshland, almost 4 miles from the sea. The engineers decided to wait until winter, when the ground would be frozen, to move it. Using no animals or machines, men hauled the rock to the sea, using sledges and bronze spheres that acted like ball bearings. It was taken to a specially built barge that was then transported via sea and river to the site in St. Petersburg. Along the way, a journey which took 9 months, workers carved the so-called “Thunder Rock” to the appropriate shape for the statue's base. €4,300 (US $5,447).
Before Emily Post, there was Giovanni Della Casa. Della Casa was a learned Italian poet, writer, translator, and cleric. He was at one time Archbishop of Benevento, and supposedly wished to be a cardinal. Reportedly, some transgressions prevented that, perhaps his out of wedlock child, though the death of Pope Paul III, his patron, would not have helped his ambition. Item 33 is his Rime, et Prose, which includes his most noted work, Il Galateo. This is a book on manners, it being the wisdom of an older man (Galateo) explained to a younger one. The young man is instructed in the rules of being polite and well-mannered. Item 33, published in 1558. €4,900 (US $6,212).
Libreria Antiquaria Rappaport may be reached at +39 – 06.48.38.26 or info@rappaport.it Their website is www.rappaport.it.
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