La Balia [The Nurse]; Poemetto di Luigi Tansillo, Pubblicato Ora la Prima Volta con Annotazioni da Gio. Antonio Ranza, Regio Profefsore di Umane Lettere in Vercelli

Vercello: Presso Il Panialis, 1768. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very good. First printed edition, octavo size, 80 pp., all text in Italian. Luigi Tansillo (1510-1568) wrote several volumes of poetry, one of which was "considered licentious enough" to be placed on the list of books banned by the Vatican, by Pope Paul IV (1476-1559) (per Wiki). This work, La Balia, is considered to be one of the earliest "Pediatric" poems; although written in first half of the sixteenth century, it was not discovered until the 18th century, this book being the first time it was published. It sets forth advice for mothers to nurture their own children instead of giving them to a wet nurse, apparently "prompted by an illness of his wife after abstaining from suckling her own child".

___DESCRIPTION: Bound in later marbled paper over boards, new-ish leather spine label, new-ish endpapers, lovely vignette engraving on the title page of a woman suckling an infant, while another child rocks a third child in a cradle, with notes by Giovanni Antonio Ranza (1741-1801) at the bottom of the pages, second engraving at the end of the book of a boy fishing, with a castle, and a ship with birds, in the distance; octavo size (approximately 8" tall), pagination: (iii)-viii, 1-74. Please note that all text is in Italian.

___CONDITION: Overall very good, the binding is sturdy, corners are straight and unrubbed, hinges are solid, the text block is square, and other than some pencil marks on the front endpapers (presumably from prior booksellers), the book is free of prior owner markings; the marbled boards are somewhat rubbed with some ink stains on the front (as though a letter with wet ink had been laid on top), since the volume opens with the title page which appears to be page (iii) we assume a half-title page is lacking, and whomever bound the book trimmed the bottom edges quite close to the text (to our knowledge there is no loss of text).

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