Two Cats, a Monkey, and a Bear
[ACCADEMIA DELL’ARCADIA.]
Favola di due gatti e della scimia coll’appello de’ medesimi gatti all’orso, divisa in due parti, componimenti di diversi pastori d’Arcadia. Florence, Bernardo Paperini, 1730.
4to, pp. 27, [1, blank]; printed in parallel Latin and Italian on facing pages, copper-engraved vignette to title, woodcut ornaments and initials; minor foxing to first and final leaves, but a very good copy; uncut in modern patterned boards, gilt red paper lettering-piece to spine.
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Favola di due gatti e della scimia coll’appello de’ medesimi gatti all’orso, divisa in due parti, componimenti di diversi pastori d’Arcadia.
First combined edition, rare, of two fables in parallel Latin and Italian verse by members of the Roman Accademia degli Arcadi, comprising Due gatti ed una scimia (first 1728) and the first appearance of its sequel, Appello de’ due gatti all’orso.
Both fables were published only pseudonymously under the pastoral names assumed by the Arcadians, the first part authored by ‘Nadisto’ (the fabulist Francesco Lelli) and ‘Ergisto Balirio’ (Francesco Buttari), and the second by ‘Telindo’ and ‘Nicotele’, all members of the prestigious literary society promoting pastoral poetry over the grandiose baroque style which was popular at the time.
We find a single copy in the UK (BL) and two in the US (Berkeley, Harvard).
On the Accademia degli Arcadi, see Maylender, Storie delle accademie d’Italia (1926–1930) I, p. 254.