Information
Naples, Domenico Terres, 1777. In 8°, vols. 4 tied in two, portrait of Genovesi engraved on copper by S. Giampiccoli, engraving frontispiece depicting the allegory of Justice signed "MS Giampiccoli inc.", typographical mark on the title page, pp. XVI-364 (pages 161-164 omitted, pagination errors from p. 289 onwards); XV (but XVI)-319; XIV (but XVI)-310; 366. Full parchment binding. Burnishing, blooms. Rare original edition.
Specialist Notes
"L'Esprit des lois" is the work that collects the multiple elements and principles of the historical, political and social thought of Charles Louis de Secondat, baron of Montesquieu (1689 - 1755), the result of long meditations, travels and readings, was published anonymously in Geneva in 1748 and is based on some general principles from which, according to the Author, the political and civil institutions that govern human societies derive their origin and life. The Work immediately spread throughout Italy and a translation by the Florentine Giuseppe Maria Mecatti began in Naples as early as 1749; in September 1750 the first volume was already printed by Giovanni di Simone, but Nivernais, for reasons of censorship, had the printing operation interrupted at least until December of the same year, thus the second volume, in a very limited number of copies, saw the light only in 1751, in a partial and in many ways incorrect translation as it had to take into account the dictates of censorship, thus distorting the text and meaning. Genovesi then translated it directly into the French edition to which he attached his commentary in notes which, as the reviser D. Cavallario points out, "Antonio Genovesi added in the margin of his Montesquieu for personal use"; the publisher Terres, who came into possession of Genovesi's original manuscript, obtained permission to print the commented work in 1777, with the addition of some related operettas such as "L'Elogio del D'Alembert" by Montesquieu himself , "the Defense" by J. Fontaine de la Roche and the "Sincere Thanks" attributed to Voltaire. Of this edition, therefore the first complete one in Italian and the first ever with Genovesi's commentary, at least two editions are recorded, the first, with pagination errors and with a portrait of Genovesi and an allegorical frontispiece by Giampiccoli and a second with the portrait of Montesquieu and the frontispiece signed by Pignatari. There is also news of a Venetian counterfeit issued with a false place and date of printing "Amsterdam 1773".
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