M. Cesarotti - Poesie di Ossian - 1819

The Poems of Ossian

Translated by Melchior Cesarotti

Venice, at Giuseppe Orlandelli with the Picottiani press, 1819

4 volumes in-16° (mm. 160x105), pp. XII, 312; 367; 377, (7); 343.

Contemporary bindings in half-leather with corners, marbled boards, smooth spines with gilded tips and fillets, yellow edges.

Beautiful edition of the famous translation by Melchior Cesarotti, enriched with engravings (portrait of the author and plates beyond the text on Ossianic subjects).

This is the most authoritative and fortunate Italian version of the Ossian Poems, the poetic cycle “discovered” (and largely invented) by James Macpherson. Cesarotti, with his elegant and sensitive style, made this cornerstone text of European preromanticism accessible to the Italian public, profoundly influencing Foscolo, Leopardi, Manzoni, and the entire Italian Romantic literature.

The volumes contain the main poems (Fingal, Temora, The Death of Cu Guullin, Carton, Crom, The War of Inistone, etc.) accompanied by critical notes and observations by the translator.

- A particularly careful edition of the early 19th century, with iconographic apparatus.
- A fundamental work in the history of Romantic taste in Italy: the “Ossian phenomenon” marked the transition from Enlightenment rationalism to a sense of nature, melancholy, and the sublime.
- Cesarotti was one of the leading intellectuals of 18th-century Veneto, and his translation is considered a classic of Italian literature.

A good-condition copy, with some natural signs of wear and typical foxing of the period’s paper. Bindings with some defects to the spine but solid and pleasant.

Rare opportunity to acquire one of the most beautiful and complete editions of Cesarotti’s Ossian translation in a compact, elegant format with plates.