The Florence Miscellany. de Piozzi, Hester Lynch Thrale (1741-1821); William Parsons; Robert Merry; and others - 1785

Florence: Printed for G[aetano] Cam[biagi], 1785. First edition, gift copy. Leather. Fine/Presentation copy from Hester Lynch Piozzi to her friend and correspondent, the Cambridge professor of Arabic Leonard Chappelow, with his signature on the title page and note on the front fly-leaf, “Given to me by my Good Friend Mrs. Piozzi April 1787.” Opposite Mrs. Piozzi’s “Translation of an Italian Sonnet upon an English Watch,” is inserted an autograph transcript of the original Italian poem in Piozzi’s hand. The typographical error in the printed text annoyed her, as she wrote to Lysons from Rome in March, 1786, “They have printed it ‘touched by a magic hand.’ It should be ‘wand,’ for ‘hand’ comes in the line that rhymes to it.” Here, she crossed out “hand” and wrote “wand” in black ink. The collection was a collaboration between four English ex-pats (Piozzi, William Parsons, Robert Merry and Bertie Greatheed) and their Italian friends, among them Piozzi’s husband (who contributed a musical serenade), Ippolito Pindemonte, Lorenzo Pignotti, Angelo d’Elci, Marco Lastri and Giuseppe Parini. Their idea was to reinvigorate poetry by injecting Italian poetic traditions into English letters. In addition to original poems, the volume notably translates selections from Petrarch, Dante, Tasso and Poliziano into English, as well as contemporary political odes and panegyrics to Italian patriots. The collection was written off as unserious by contemporary critics (in part due to Piozzi’s preface, which presents it as light amusement), yet it was the first important English engagement with Italian poetry after Milton, and it led English Romantics into Italian territory. The authors shared copies from the paltry print run between themselves and sent out copies to their friends. . Octavo (21 cm); 224 pages, including three pages of engraved music. Manuscript leaf in Piozzi's hand bound in. Bound in contemporary English tree calf, gilt, covers with an outer border of Greek key pattern between gilt fillets and framing an interlaced gilt inner border with tooled corner ornaments of flowers, board edges, turn-ins, and text block edges gilt; marbled endleaves; expertly rebacked with original backstrip laid down, corners repaired. Some very minor foxing. Manuscript alterations (by Piozzi) on pages 62, 209, 215. Censored lines on pages 9, and 27 left blank, but small pasted slip corrects text on page 20. Nineteenth-century bookplate of Walter Hamilton; penciled note of Pickering & Chatto on lower endleaf dated 1937. Reference: Rothschild 1437; Maggs catalogue 1083, #398 (this copy)