Pro Neo-Caesare Eustachii Cartoli Sistrum.

Pages (8), 1-74 (1 leaf), 75-164 (1 leaf), 165-170 (1 leaf), 171-174 (1 leaf), 175-(188) (1 leaf), 189-267,(1). Title printed in red and black with large engraved arms of the honoree Francis I, grand-duke of Tuscany and recently elected Holy Roman emperor, one engraved plate with a carmen figuratum in the shape of a cross on Aa2r signed by N. V. (not identified) after Eustachio Cartoli and dated 1747, five engravings of which four armorial or emblematic, including one printed in green and one (the insignia of the Order of St. Stephen) in sepia, and engraved portrait of the author, signed with monogram of Pietro Antonio Pazzi and dated 1749; 3 large engraved head-pieces and an engraved tail-piece, 5 engraved pictorial initials, and numerous typographic vignettes, ornaments, initials and head- and tail-pieces. Contemporary parchment over boards, flat spine with manuscript inked title to spine. Front paste-down with book label of the French banker and bibliophile Horace de Landau (1824-1903). Folio (360 x 245 mm). Covers slightly bowed, extremeties worn.


Not in Brunet and Graesse ; not in Higgins. Pattern Poetry, Guide to an Unknown Literature ; not in Jeremy Adler/Ulrich Ernst. Text als Figur. Visuelle Poesie von der Antike bis zur Moderne. First and only edition of a cornucopia of wordplay and playful typography, composed in honor of the grand-duke of Tuscany, Francis I (1708-1765), recently crowned Holy Roman emperor. The sistrum of the title is a musical instrument of the percussion family, here shaken loudly for the new emperor. Little is known of the author, other than his residence, described in a note to the reader, in the village of San Marcello in the hill country northwest of Florence. He is referred to as dottore in his only other published work, an edition of sonnets published in 1730. Written in Latin verse, with prose sections in Italian, the elegantly printed work, filled with engraved, woodcut and typographic ornaments and with a few words printed vertically or sideways, contains acrostics, anagrams, letter-number ciphers, chronograms, palindromes, riddles, verbal emblems, epigrams and other types of word-play. A nine-page description of the imperial entry into Vienna (presumably following the coronation) opens the work, followed by festive poems including a series of "homages" from the rivers of Tuscany, and dozens of laudatory distichs and epigrams, grouped thematically and by honoree. The plate depicts an imperial cross-shaped pattern poem in palindromes, all phrases saluting the emperor and empress, starting with the central letter A and readable in various directions; the cross is transfixed by four crowned scepters, composed of fleurs-de-lis, eagles, imperial orbs, and the entire assemblage is held aloft by an eagle. Another palindromic pattern poem, in triangular form, is typographic (p. 226). The edition seems to have evolved over several years: While the title is dated 1746, later dates appear on the plate (1747), Cartoli's note to the reader (May 1748), and Pazzi's portrait of the author (1749). A fine and fresh, very broadmargined copy printed on thick laid paper.