Antologia Repubblicana

1831 · Bologna (?)
Poems by Foscolo, Monti, Bandettini, and more
$350

Octavo (16cm); viii, 238 pages. Bound in contemporary quarter calf over paper-covered boards decorated in a sort of blood cell pattern. Black leather title label. Scuffed and worn, joints tender. Title page and several succeeding leaves lightly foxed, with some stains along fore-edge. Scarce in North American libraries.

Anthology of revolutionary poetry published to feed the fever of of the growing independence movement in Italy. The drive to overthrow the Austrian and French control of Italy broke into violence in several Italian cities in 1830 and 1831. Bologna, together with a few surrounding cities, actually declared independence, and existed as a self-governing entity (The United Provinces) for several months before being overcome by a fresh assault of the Austrian military. Perhaps this volume was printed during that brief interval– we have no reliable bibliographical data to inform us. It packages a storm of patriotic poetry by revered poets such as Foscolo and Monti (both recently dead), together with Teresa Bandettini, Giovanni Pindemonte, Giovanni Gherardini, and many others lesser known, unknown, or anonymous. The book is an artifact of the imaginative passion that underlay the independence movement in the years leading up to the Risorgimento of 1860.