Piccoli Bronzi del Museo Borbonico. Distinti per Categorie in Dieci Tavole. Descritti e Disegnati da Carlo Ceci, Custode Ordinario del Real Museo Borbonico

Oblong folio.  350 x 485 mm., [13 ¾ x 19 inches].  Title printed on front wrapper, introduction leaf and 10 pages of text.  With 10 full-page lithographic plates, printed in blue and bronze color by Dolfino of Naples, with 334 objects illustrated.  Bound in original brown paper wrappers; some minor tears to edges, spine rubbed but mostly intact.  At one time the folio was folded in two, with some creasing to the pages, but no damage to the text block.  Bookplate of Biblioteca Papafava.

First edition.  Very good copy in original condition of Carlo Ceci's attempt to create a standardized nomenclature for the small bronzes excavated from Pompei, Herculaneum and other areas near Naples and were part of the collections in the Museo Borbonico.  Ceci was the first curator of this collection of small bronzes and in the introduction, he describes his goal of creating a standardized nomenclature and classification system for this diverse group of objects.  The lithographs illustrate ten categories created by Ceci which include bronze utensils used in cooking, weights and measuring instruments, lamps and candelabra, sacred objects, small idols, bronze symbols of war, harnesses for horses, object used by women in the bath, tools used in agriculture and more.  The lithos are printed in blue ink with some use of a bronze color to distinguish certain objects.

A second edition, enlarged with four more plates, followed by an edition printed in 1873.  OCLC list seven copies of the 1854 edition in the U.S.