Persephone in Patterned Paper
CLAUDIANUS, Claudius; Tommaso MEDINA, translator.
Il ratto di Proserpina di Claudio Claudiano tradotto in versi sciolti dal C. Tommaso Medina con il testo a fronte. Brescia, Bettoni, 1804.
Large 8vo, pp. 204, [4]; parallel text in Latin and Italian; some marginal staining to first quire, a little light foxing, but a good uncut copy in a striking later nineteenth-century binding of decorative block-printed paper with a pattern of an undulating pink line with green outlining on a black ground, over thin pasteboard, spine and corners of beige marbled paper, green paper spine label lettered ‘Medina’; head of upper cover a little faded.
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Il ratto di Proserpina di Claudio Claudiano tradotto in versi sciolti dal C. Tommaso Medina con il testo a fronte.
Very rare first edition of a translation of Claudian’s The Rape of Proserpine by the debauched friend of Casanova, Count Tommaso Medina (or Medín, 1725–1788), with facing Latin and Italian text, bound in vermiculated paper.
Born in Alexandria, Claudian (d. c. 404) was the last great Latin poet in the classical tradition. ‘Although a native Greek speaker, he turned to composing in Latin and became immediately successful as a court poet under Honorius, the young emperor in the West ... His most finished work ... is The Rape of Proserpine, of which 1,100 lines survive; he tells with great charm the familiar story of Proserpine’s abduction by Pluto in the field of Enna’ (Oxford Companion to Classical Literature).
Medina led something of a dissolute life, was acquainted with Casanova, and died in a London debtor’s prison.
No copies located in the UK or US.