Verona’s Capitulation to Napoleon
SANFERMO CARIONI PEZZI, Rocco, Giovanni Battista GARAVETTA, and Francesco D’EMILEI.
Lettera scritta nel castello di S. Felice al Senato di Venezia. Verona, 1797.
Large 8vo, pp. 34, [2, blank]; some foxing, but a good copy; sewn long stitch in contemporary patterned paper wrappers (block-printed in red with green highlights added by hand); wrapper somewhat worn.
One of several editions published immediately upon Verona’s capitulation to Napoleon in 1797, addressed to the Venetian Senate, in a contemporary patterned paper wrapper.
This booklet contains details of the capitulation of the city of Verona to the French, dated 30 April 1797 and addressed to the Venetian Senate, following the defeated uprising against the French occupying forces which lasted from 17 to 25 April, when fifteen thousand French troops surrounded the city. The author of the text describes the terms and the process of capitulation (with the bishop, who had recently preached against the Jacobins, and the proveditori being kept as hostages), along with justifications of his and his colleagues’ conduct; this is followed by two letters by Napoleon as head of the French army in Italy, describing the ‘perfidy’ of the Venetians, one addressed to Citizen Lallemand in Venice, and the other to the Doge. (Later it was decided that those in charge of the massacre of French troops in April would be deported to Guyana or shot.) Napoleon dissolved the Republic of Venice shortly afterwards, in May, and in 1798 it became Austrian territory.
Copies of the letter were quickly printed across what had been Venetian territory, from Brescia to Padua and Venice itself. A French translation was issued at the same time.
This decorative paper, attributed to the Remondini of Bassano del Grappa, was also printed with the colouring reversed; see Quilici, Carte decorate nella legatoria del ‘700, p. 98.
No copies of this edition traced in the US or UK. Library Hub locates two other 1797 printings, at the Bodleian and the British Library.