Cerceau - Conjuration de Rienzi - 1733

CONSPIRACY, POWER AND THE THEATER OF HISTORY: COLA DI RIENZO READ IN THE AGE OF REASON/ENLIGHTENMENT
This rare eighteenth-century edition of Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini, dit de Rienzi proposes a historical and moral reading of Cola di Rienzo's political arc, a liminal figure between tyranny and civic utopia, reread in light of Enlightenment sensibility.
«lli baroni de Roma so derobatori de strada: essi consiento li omicidii, le robbarie, li adulterii, onne male; essi voco che la loro citate iaccia desolata.»
Jean Antoine du Cerceau transforms the Roman episode of 1347 into an exemplary tale about power, the seduction of political rhetoric, and the fragility of revolutions founded on individual charisma. The work stands midway between historiography, political reflection, and the theater of history, in keeping with a typically eighteenth-century taste for the medieval past reinterpreted as a moral laboratory.
MARKET VALUE
Complete copies with the title page of this Paris edition of 1733 are rarely found on the market. Copies in good condition generally range between 200 and 400 euros. A realistic estimate between 300 and 500 euros, depending on the overall state of preservation and the quality of the remaining text.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Leather binding. Gilded embellishments and a title plaque on the back. Frontispiece missing. As with all old books, with a multi-century history, a few imperfections may be present that are not always noted in the description. Pp. (4); 600; (4).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini dit de Rienzi, tyran de Rome en 1347.
Paris, Étienne, 1733.
Jean Antoine du Cerceau.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The character of Cola di Rienzo, tribune of the people and protagonist of a fleeting republican dream in fourteenth-century Rome, exerted a strong attraction on eighteenth-century historians and moralists. In this work, du Cerceau does not limit himself to narrating the facts but builds a true study of the mechanism of charismatic power, the political use of Roman memory, and the transformation of the civic ideal into tyranny. The conspiracy of 1347 thus becomes a historical paradigm useful for interrogating, in a delicate thread, the political tensions of modern Europe, in an era marked by debates on sovereignty, legitimacy, and popular participation.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Jean Antoine du Cerceau was a French historian and man of letters active in the first half of the eighteenth century. He devoted himself chiefly to political and military history, with particular attention to exemplary episodes of the past, interpreted through a moral and rational lens, in line with Enlightenment historical culture.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The Paris edition of 1733 represents one of the main testimonies to the eighteenth-century fortune of Cola di Rienzo’s myth in France. Printed in Paris by Étienne, it circulated mainly among educated circles interested in comparative political history and reflections on governance models. The edition was not produced in large numbers, as confirmed by the relative scarcity of copies today available.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU/SBN: to be verified
WorldCat: Paris, Étienne, 1733 edition listed in French libraries
Studies on Cola di Rienzo:
– F. Gregorovius, Storia della città di Roma nel Medioevo, book XIII
– A. Rehberg, Cola di Rienzo e il sogno della Roma repubblicana
– J. Burckhardt, La civiltà del Rinascimento in Italia (on the modern reception of the Roman political myth)