Satire e poesie minori di Vittorio Alfieri.

Florence: Barbèra, Bianchi e Comp, 1858. Collezione Diamante. Good. 48mo (112 mm), xvi, 537 pages; engraved frontispiece portrait with tissue guard. Bound in contemporary green cloth, titled in gilt on spine. A few gilt letters are tarnished. Endleaves discolored. Intermittent light scattered foxing. Reference: Annali bibliografici, 40; Parenti, Rarità bibliografiche, I, 45, #7.

The canny Italian publisher Gaspero Barbèra made two brilliant moves practically simultaneously: he developed the vest-pocket 48mo format for Italian classics, and he hired the still-beardless 20-year-old Giosuè Carducci to edit them. This edition of Vittorio Alfieri's neoclassical poems and satires was Carducci's first job, his first published edition with Barbèra. Carducci's preface was characterized as "robust, elegant, and magisterial" in the 1904 annals of Barbèra's editions. Carducci is considered Italy's most significant poet of the unification period. According to Parenti, there are two distinct printings with unique collations. The copy offered here has priority.