C. Giudici - La Bottega de’ Chiribizzi - 1685

First Edition

The Workshop of the Chiribizzi by Doctor Cesare Giudici.

Dedicated to the most illustrious Sir, Doctor and Lawyer Matteo Abbiate Forieri. In Milan, by Ambrogio Ramellati, (1685).

Milanese original edition of this rare and amusing Baroque collection. Cesare Giudici (1634-1724), physician and literary man, presents a “workshop” of chiribizzi (caprices, whimsies, bizarre and satirical inventions): sonnets, odes, short stories, ridiculous operettas, alphabets in zergo, advice, prophecies and playful pieces on love, social and moral topics. Among the pieces: “Erezione della Bottega,” “Vulcano vendicato. Operetta ridicola,” “La Novelletta,” “L’Alfabeto in Zerco,” odes and sonnets of light and witty tone, typical of the consumer and entertainment literature of seventeenth-century Lombardy. The work is dedicated to Matteo Abbiate Forieri, Milanese advocate and consultant.

Copy in 12° (about 15 × 10 cm). Collation: (16), 344, (1) pp. The portrait and leaves A-A3 are missing (as noted). Contemporary limp parchment binding, with manuscript title on the spine (partially legible “Bottega de’ Chiribizzi”) and slight signs of wear.

Interior with the typical browning and use marks of the period, text readable; present are woodcut friezes (baskets of flowers and fruit, putti, heads, peacocks, etc.).

First edition, very rare on the market (a Venetian reprint from 1721 known from Domenico Lovisa). An authentic witness of the playful and satirical Milanese literature of the late Seicenteenth century, little represented in libraries and private collections. Of notable interest to scholars of Baroque literature, satire and seventeenth-century Lombard culture.

Genuine copy, though incomplete for the initial leaves and the portrait, in period binding.