Res Gestae Napoleonis
MUSESTI, Piero; Giovammaria FEBRARI, translator.
Gesta di Napoleone I. imperator de’ Francesi e re d’Italia scritte in lingua Latina dal prete Piero Musesti e rese in Italiano per Giovammaria Febrari. Brescia, Tipografia dipartimentale, 1805.
4to, pp. 52; large paper copy, parallel text in Latin and Italian; occasional very light foxing, but a very good crisp copy; bound in block-printed decorative paper over pasteboard, a pattern of thin horizontal red stripes overlaid with a geometrical pattern in pale blue, showing the edge of the patterned sheet along the foredges; a few small stains, some tears to paper on spine; a presentation copy from the authors, with an inscription on the front pastedown ‘Alla Municipalità in attestato di stima Gli Autori'.
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Gesta di Napoleone I. imperator de’ Francesi e re d’Italia scritte in lingua Latina dal prete Piero Musesti e rese in Italiano per Giovammaria Febrari.
Uncommon first and only edition of this dual language panegyric to Napoleon, composed in the wake of his coronation as King of Italy in Milan cathedral in May 1805, a large paper copy in decorative paper, presented by the authors.
A marvellous example of bombastic bootlicking, the text describes the French Emperor as Alexander the Great, Caesar, Marcellus, Germanicus, Scipio, Hannibal, and Hiero of Syracuse all rolled into one.
No copies traced in the UK, and only two in the US (UCLA, University of Illinois).