1767 · Lucca
by Leonardi, Domenico Felice
Lucca: Giovanni Riccomini, 1767. 8vo. 203 x 135 mm. (8 x 5 1/4 inches). 32 pp. Engraved title-page vignette of a putti and a dolphin; two woodcut decorative initial letters, head- and tail-pieces of putti and designed backgrounds. Original red Italian decorative paper wrappers; remnants of a paper label on lower spine and a small stain to the edge of upper wrapper, light fading to upper cover, otherwise an attractive copy. Only edition of this rare laudatory poem on the joy and responsibility of marriage and the correct conduct of a mother to newborn children. The book is dedicated to Maria Luisa Boccella (Mansi) an old friend of the author and written for her daughter Isabella, who is engaged to marry Girolamo Parensi. In the poem Leornadi speaks about obedience of wife to husband, the tenderness of the man to the women, and that child birth is the expected outcome of the married life. The poem, typical of its type, is remarkable for a long note about motherhood, discusses the use of swaddling, which inhibits the baby and puts it at risk of harm. He suggests that mothers in Holland, England, France and Portugal all have found the practice dangerous and have abandoned the practice. He also suggests that using a wet nurse is a bad idea and unnatural. The rare poem is unrecorded in the Italian Union catalogue database (ICCN) and only one copy is in OCLC at U. Maryland.
(Inventory #: 111)