Il bue pedagogo novelle menippee di Luciano da Fiorenzuola contro una certa Frusta pseudoepigrafa di Aristarco Scannabue

8vo.  193 x 135 mm., [7 ½ x 5 ¼ inches].  218, (2) pp.  Bound in contemporary tan paste paper boards; some natural soiling to the covers, some stress to the sewing of the text block yet sound; wide margins.

First edition.  A vicious and harmful response to Baretti’s criticism of Buonofede’s comedy I filosofi fanciulli published ten years earlier in 1754.  Baretti challenged Buonafede’s comic sensibility, questioned his understanding of the comedic tradition of the ancients, and suggested that his essay was devoid of the characteristics that made a work of comedy accessible to the public. 

Baretti’s critique appeared in the June issue of La Frusta letteraria and upon reading it Buonafede pounced, using his connections with the established church and the Venetian authorities to banish Baretti from both the Papal States and the Republic.  Il Bue Pedagogo elicited eight more Discorsi by Baretti of Buonafede’s published works and this controversy is considered by today’s scholar essential to understanding the cross currents of Italian though during the middle decades of the 18th century. 

Buonafede (1716-1793), born in Comacchio a coastal city in the eastern part of the Province of Ferrara on the Adriatic Sea.  He was educated at home and after the death of his father entered the Order of the Celestines and finished his education, studying philosophy and theology.  He was also encouraged to study literature and found that he had a flair for the written word.  As an author he was “esteemed in social circles as a man of letters, capable of treating fashionable topics superficially, but with verve and wit.”  His major publication was a seven volume work on the history of philosophy, one of the first of its kind.  He was also fond of writing about contemporary society, but as he aged and his responsibilities to the Church increased, his wit and charm turned defensive, and his view of society became mired in Baroque formulas and antiquated opinions. 

Baretti was an independent spirit who was willingness to challenge the thought of the so called enlightened writers like Voltaire, Pietro Verri, the writers of Il Café, and Goldoni, Gozzi and Chiara, luminaries of the Italian theater. Because of his caustic criticism Baretti was hated by many and Buonafede’s Il bue pedogogo was meant, not only to defend himself, but to alert Italian society of an undesirable in its midst and to rid it of his independent nature and critical thinking.

Rare: According to OCLC there are no copies  in American libraries and it is not cited in NUC.  Giovanni Antonio Melzi,  Dizionario di opere anonime e pseudonime di scrittori Italiani p. 155.   Giambattista Salinari, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, V. 15 (1972).  Desmond O’Connor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004) for information on Baretti.