POZZI, Giuseppe (1697–1752). Rime piacevoli, componimenti poetici, satire, inni sacri, sonetti, e scritti morali. Italy (probably Bologna), third quarter of the eighteenth century.
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A substantial quarto format manuscript on paper comprising 156 leaves, inclusive of blanks, densely written in an elegant eighteenth-century cursive hand, generally approximately 30 lines per page, most leaves written recto and verso.
A curious and evidently composite literary anthology preserving an extensive body of satirical, devotional, moral, and occasional verse associated with Monsignor Giuseppe Pozzi, Bolognese poet and personal physician to Pope Benedict XIV. The manuscript appears to have been compiled over a period of time: while the opening portions are explicitly associated in the text with Pozzi’s Rime piacevoli and related compositions, other sections preserve works attributed to additional authors, including a certain “Signor Saccenti", alongside devotional texts, moral reflections, sonnets, satirical capitoli, and miscellaneous poetic material.
The contents reflect the eclectic literary culture of eighteenth-century Italy, moving fluidly between sacred and comic verse, occasional poetry, satire, and moralising compositions. Several sections appear to survive here in manuscript form only. Pozzi’s Rime piacevoli received three posthumous eighteenth-century editions (1764, 1773, and 1776), all issued with false London imprints, though in reality printed in Italy.
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Contents: I. Rime piacevoli (36 leaves); II. poetic compositions on the happiness of the religious life, including a response by Giampietro Zanotti and verses addressed to Signora Bentivogli (14 leaves); III. acts of Faith, Hope, Charity, and Contrition in verse (13 leaves); IV. Canto IV on the marriage of Charles Albert of Bavaria and Maria Amalia of Austria (7 leaves); V. various canzoni and sonnets (2 leaves); VI. long poetic composition, now largely illegible due to ink corrosion (23 leaves); VII. sacred hymns to the Virgin and the Mysteries of the Rosary, arranged in two columns (4 leaves); VIII. various sonnets (8 leaves); IX. extracts from the Gazzetta di Firenze concerning news from Lisbon, dated 17 June 1774 (8 leaves); X. Cupid, o sia l’Amor profano svergognato, an Anacreontic poem (6 leaves); XI. spiritual songs exhorting divine love (4 leaves); XII. Latin ode concerning servants “who wished to poke their noses everywhere” (2 leaves); XIII. Capitolo of Signor Saccenti to Canon Marcantonio de’ Mozzi (5 leaves); XIV. Roma al re cattolico (5 leaves); XV. various sonnets, several now partially illegible (12 leaves); together with blank leaves and additional miscellaneous material throughout.
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Size: 166 x 230 mm (approx.)
Condition:
Contemporary cardboard binding, secure, a little discolouration and mild staining, remnants of a mostly removed sticker to upper spine. No attached bookplates. Old bookseller catalogue entry to front free endpaper verso. 37 pages defective with losses and entirely illegible due to significant ink corrosion, many of those leaves are fragmentary. To the other leaves, and for the majority of the manuscript, the text remains legible, though still with ink corrosion in places, some paper weaknesses, toned. Previously sold by an Italian book dealer called Studio Bibliografico Pera (Libreria in Antiquaria in Lucca)
