PREDICHE

4to, pp. [iv], 285, [1] blank; woodcut vignette on title-page, and initials; text in double columns throughout; some light foxing and browning in places, and marking to title-page, but largely clean and fresh; uncut and in large part unopened in contemporary carta rustica, with patterned paper spine, hand-written orange paper lettering-piece on spine; a lovely copy.

A good copy, in a lovely unsophisticated binding, of this later printing of collected sermons of the great preacher Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663-1742), translated into Italian after the edition of 1745-8.

The volume contains twenty sermons for some of the principal feasts of the Church calendar, including two for the Purification of the Virgin, one for Christmas, one for Pentecost, and one for the Assumption, as well as others for the feasts of St Agnes, St Thomas Aquinas, and St Benedict. The early appearance of this Italian translation (first printed, again by Occhi, in 1748) testifies to the popularity and influence of Massillon's preaching even after his death; printings are numerous (this is the fourth) but most are uncommon.

OCLC records two copies outside Italy, at Ticino and Girona.