I tre giuli o sieno sonetti di Niceste Abideno P.A. sopra l’importunita d’un creditor di tre giulj, Dedicati a Sua Eccellenza la Signora D. Cecilia Mahony Giustiniani Principessa di Bassano, e Duchessa di Corbara. Rome, Bernabo & Lazzarini, 1762.
First Edition. 4to (200 x 130 mm), pp. xviii, 200, wanting the last blank, some light browning and the occasional stain but text generally nice and clean, in contemporary Italian vellum, with the later ownership inscription of Edward H. Bunbury, Pisa Rome (crossed out), December 1833.
A scarce and elegantly printed collection of sonnets on the subject of a debt of the sum of three giuli. Giovanni Battista Casti was the author of a number of opera libretti, some of which, such as his most famous, Cublai, gran Kan de’ tartari, 1788, were set by Salieri. Casti dedicates the work to Cecilia Mahony Giustiniani (1740-1789), who was a Naples-born protegée of James III and who was painted by Pompeo Batoni in 1785.
Provenance: Edward H. Bunbury (1811-1885), fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, best known for his work on the study of geography among the ancients.
OCLC lists BL, Bodleian and Chicago only.