Descrizione della Stufa di Pensilvania dal Signor Franklin Americano, introducendo la quale in Italia…

THE FRANKLIN STOVE COMES TO ITALY

Venice, Antonio Graziosi, 1778.

8vo (18.4 x 11.9 cm), 47 (i.e. 43) pp., 1 folding engraved plate. Signatures: A6 [skip between pp. 6-11, (A4-5)], B-C6. Bound in publisher's wrappers. Complete and overall excellent.

First Italian edition in book form of Benjamin Franklin's pamphlet describing the invention of his new stove, originally published by Franklin in 1744 as An Account of the new-invented Philadelphia Fireplaces. The work includes a foldout engraving copied after the engraving of Franklin's first edition, illustrating airflow through the flue, and the separate components (mantelpiece, air-box, baffles, etc.) of the stove itself.

Apart from a letter to the reader, the present translation adheres to Franklin's first edition almost to the letter, including his appraisal of 'German' and 'Holland' stoves, his discussion of the contemporary literature on stove mechanics (particularly Gauger's 1709 work Le Méchanique de Feu), and his addition of a shutter in the funnel to clear rooms of tobacco-smoke. Franklin's invention—which, like so many others, he offered to the public domain—was quickly seized upon by manufacturers across the Atlantic, and a variety of designs and models had soon proliferated across the Continent, creating a significant impact on domestic architecture throughout England and western Europe. A third Italian edition was printed in 1791.

OCLC: Yale, American Philosophical Society (apparently incomplete, containing only 28 pp. and a folding plate). A first edition of the work appeared in the compilation Scelta di opuscoli interessanto tradotti da varie lingue (Milan 1775). Like the Yale copy, the present copy skips pp. 7-10, as the A quire is bound in sixes, and is as such complete. With thanks to Sterling Memorial for checking the Yale copy.

* Ford 42.