Il Mvseo Mvssolini (Il Museo Mussolini)

Roma, Italia: La Libreria dello Stato, 1939. First Edition . Buckram. Very Good Plus. Folio - over 12" - 15" tall. Questa non è una edizione bilingue. Testo in italiano solo, non in inglese. Stampato nelle Officine dell'Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, a Roma, 1938, XVI E.F. [Epoca Fascista, sedicesimo anno]. A cura del Reale Istituto d'Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte sotto gli auspici del Governatorato di Roma. CXXIII tavole. Le pagine portano la filigrana della casa editrice, La Libreria dello Stato, ovviamente influenzato dalla emblema che rappresenta il Partito Nazionale Fascista. Questo libro è molto scarsa in qualsiasi condizione. This is not a bilingual edition. Text in Italian only, not in English. Limitation unstated but unlikely to have exceeded 1,000 folio copies. Large folio, 14 x 10 inches. Later full green buckram, heavy-duty binding, with the original buckram backstrip neatly laid down along the spine. Backstrip with titling and ruling in a golden-green resembling gilt. Gently bumped spine head and tail, with sharp corners. The binding is immensely clean. The text block is firmly bound in. Attractive Japan-paper pastedowns and opposite FEPs. Fore- and bottom edges of the text block heavily deckled to a very handsome effect. The paper bearing the watermark of the publisher, La Libreria dello Stato, obviously influenced by the emblem representing the Partito Nazionale Fascista, the Italian fascist party. See, for example, the lower corner of the title page. With XVI and 202 numbered pages, including preface, introduction, catalog, general index, and addenda. With CXXIII full-page monochrome plates. Slight vertical rippling to one of the front blank FEPs. Half inch tear at top of one of the rear blank FEPs. A tiny stain at the lower corner of Plate C, entirely in the margin and deemed trivial. Else a very clean and rather tight copy. Gently read. Overall a handsome book. A Very Good Plus to Near Fine copy. Rare in any condition. The Mussolini Museum was created in 1925. The focus of this volume is on Graeco-Roman sculpture and reliefs from the museum's collection. This volume, from the library of Robin Symes, is an interesting association copy. The book label of Robin Symes was affixed to the lower left corner of the front pastedown, the label now deftly removed and preserved separately, slipped in. With thanks to Wikipedia for the following: "Robin Symes (born 1940/1941) is a now-disgraced British antiquities dealer who was unmasked as a key player in an international criminal network that traded in looted archaeological treasures. Symes and his long-time lover Christo Michaelides met and formed a business partnership in the 1970s, and Symes became one of Britain's most prominent and successful antiquities dealers. However, after Michaelides died accidentally in 1999, his family took legal action to recover his share of the Symes company's assets, and when the matter went to trial, Symes was found to have lied in his evidence about the extent and value of his property; he was subsequently charged with and convicted of contempt of court, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Ongoing investigations by Italian authorities revealed in January 2016 that Symes' involvement in the illegal antiquities trade was even more extensive than previously thought, and that he had hidden a vast hoard of looted antiquities in 45 crates at the Geneva Freeport storage warehouse in Switzerland for 15 years, in order to conceal them from Michaelides' family.