Il tempo e la virtù / la gratitudine e l'amicizia / cantate...: in occasione che prende la laurea dottorale ... il nobil signor Niccolò Santagnese

Padova: Carlo Conzatti, 1795. Original edition. Very Good. Octavo (16 cm); 29, [3 blank] pages, in one gathering (A\16). Woodcut device on title page, two woodcut headpieces showing putti in architectural setting. Bound in unusual red and orange mottled pastepaper. Slight blemishes to lower edge of wraps. No references found, no other copies located. Author's name from dedicatory letter.

All of the information we have about the two cantatas collected here comes from internal evidence. We find no external records except for the presence of a manuscript in library in Rome of a symphony and an opera by one "Paresi," no first name given. The texts here were ostensibly performed for the "podestà" (effectively, the mayor) of Padua, Girolamo Giustiniani, who must have attended graduation festivities for young Niccolò Sant'agnese, of one of Padua's prominent families. The verse (in my judgement) is unmemorable, but we cannot tell how it sounded when set to music (now lost). Carlo Conzatti's page design and printing is, as usual, skilled work, very pleasing to the eye, bound in decorated paper.