M. Cesarotti - Poesie di Ossian - 1819

The Ossian Poems

Translated by Melchior Cesarotti

Venice, at Giuseppe Orlandelli with the Picottiani presses, 1819

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

Traditional half-leather bindings with corners, marbled boards, smooth spines with gilt tips and fillets, yellow edges.

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

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

The volumes contain the major poems (Fingal, Temora, The Death of Cu Chullin, Carton, Croma, The War of Inistona, etc.) accompanied by critical notes and observations by the translator.

- A particularly careful edition from 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 the feeling of nature, melancholy, and the sublime.
- Cesarotti was one of the great intellectuals of the Veneto Enlightenment and his translation is considered a classic of Italian literature.

A sample in good condition, with some natural signs of use and browning typical of paper of the era. Bindings with some flaws on the spine but solid and pleasing.

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