UNRECORDED SONNET TO SHARPSHOOTING WOMEN
[NAPOLEONIC ITALY.]
Alla società delle gentilissime signore di Moncalieri dilettanti del giuoco del tavolazzo. Sonetto bernesco-morale estemporaneo dedicato al merito singolarissimo dell’ ill.ma sig. Contessa Gropelli di Borgone nata Provana abadessa della medesima società dal corpo dei sigg. militi volontari della citta. Li 30 luglio 1799.
Turin, Giacomo Fea, 1799.
4to, pp. 3, [1 (blank)]; trimmed a little close at head and foot, light staining to fore-edge of p. 1, light creasing from folding, but text clean and fresh; disbound.
Added to your basket:
Alla società delle gentilissime signore di Moncalieri dilettanti del giuoco del tavolazzo. Sonetto bernesco-morale estemporaneo dedicato al merito singolarissimo dell’ ill.ma sig. Contessa Gropelli di Borgone nata Provana abadessa della medesima società dal corpo dei sigg. militi volontari della citta. Li 30 luglio 1799.
An unrecorded sonnet addressed to the Society of the Gentlewomen of Moncalieri, a town just south of Turin whose castle is one of the Savoy Residences, and in particular to the ‘Abbess’ of the society, by the corps of soldiers stationed in the town shortly after the Battle of Marengo.
The women to whom the sonnet is addressed are players of tavolazzo, a Piedmontese sport along the lines of target shooting, whose rules were formally laid out in 1780. The poet reflects on the abilities and roles of women, citing Cicero’s dictum that women were just as capable as men of great accomplishments if given the education and the opportunity, and urges the women to show the courage ‘to make Mars himself pale and kneel in wonder before you’.
Not recorded by SBN, KvK, or OCLC.
You may also be interested in...

PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR TO HIS WIFE SARGENT, John.
The Mine: a dramatic Poem.
First edition of Sargent’s poem on quicksilver mines, replete with subterranean gnomes. The poem was inspired by a fantastical story of misbehaving Austrian aristocrats who are forced to labour in the mines as punishment, told in letters quoted in the introduction. In the footnotes Sargent explores geological marvels such as earthquakes, and praises Pope’s Rape of the Lock.
BREAST PRACTICE GABARO, Antonio.
Alla pregiatissima Signora Domenica Schiavon Menato nella fausta occasione del suo primo parto, in argomento di sincera congratulazione l’amico obbligatissmo Antonio Gabaro.
First and only edition, very rare, of a scathing and sexist condemnation of ‘inhuman’ women who do not breastfeed their own children, dedicated to Domenica Schiavon Menato, ‘an example to all women’, on the occasion of the birth of her first child.