Poesie, colla vita del medesimo, scritta dal Signor Carlo Susanna.

In Nap. per Salvatore Castaldo Regio Stampatore, A spese di Giacomo Raillard, s.d. (1683). 4to. 4 leaves. 118 pages. 13 leaves. 19th century half-cloth. First Edition. Born in Cagliari, Sardinia, Carlo Buragna (1634-1679) was a remarkable figure of "scholarly libertinism" in Italy in the 17th century. Versed in mathematics, geometry and philosophy, he became interested in the ideas of Galileo and Gassendi, and contributed to the founding in Naples of the Accademia degli Investiganti. This learned society was one of the first Italian assemblies of its kind. Of antiaristotelian inspiration, its members studied philosophical and scientific innovations from abroad, assimilated the positions of metaphysical materialism and advocated, in particular, on the literary level, the return to Petrarch's poetic purity. Buragna, who died prematurely at the age of forty-five, did not publish anything during his lifetime, and the present collection of poems, published posthumously and printed in small numbers, is his only work. "È una stampa napoletana senza data (circa 1683) di poche copie, divenuta rarissima (...). Nelle rime è notevole l'adesione ai modelli del Petrarca e cinquecenteschi (Bembo)" (Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani). It contains sixty-three sonnets and six songs, Latin verses and an important biographical note in Latin by his friend Carlo Susanna. Some marginal spots, browning in places, otherwise a good copy. On Buragna cf. Lovanio Rossi in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 15 (1972), C. Bertani "Il maggior poeta sardo Carlo Buragna e il petrarchismo del Seicento" (Milano 1905) and Crescimbeni, "L'Istoria della volgar poesia" (1698) p.166.