Viva Gli Sposi
[SPADAZZI, Carlo, editor.]
Per le nozze Varano-Dolfin. Rime. Venice, Stamperia Palese, 1807.
Large 8vo, pp. CXXXVIII, [2, blank]; engraved vignette to title, woodcut tailpieces; a beautiful crisp copy, printed on heavy paper; bound in contemporary Herrnhuter paste paper in terracotta over thin boards; binding very slightly rubbed, spine a little creased and faded.
First and only edition of a collection of verses in celebration of an aristocratic Venetian wedding, a crisp copy bound in Herrnhuter paste paper.
A collection of contemporary verses gathered by Carlo Spadazzi to commemorate the wedding of Venanzio Varano (died 1814) and Paolina Dolfin on 7 July 1807. The verses were also designed to provide any children from the union with an understanding of their princely heritage; the Varano family, originally from Ferrara, were the rulers of the town of Camerino in Le Marche, and the Dolfin were an old patrician family of Venice.
Most of the poems are attributed to various friends, though a few are anonymous or the author only identified by initials. Most are in Italian, with a few in Latin, and many are based on classical poetic forms and models. Many of the authors are from Ferrara, several are churchmen, and two are women (‘Signora A.S. Ferrarese accademica Ariostea’, Lucrezia Locatelli of Venice). Several were members of various academies, including the Accademia dei Filopatridi of Savignano (Emilia-Romagna), the Accademia Ariostea of Ferrara, and the Colonia Virgiliana of Mantua.
A few years later, Paolina gave birth to a child called Rodolfo, an event commemorated in another celebratory poem printed in Ferrara in 1810.
Rare: no copies traced in the US or UK. The British Library has another (shorter) volume by Domenico Michiel, with the same imprint, containing another literary commemoration of the wedding.