Giovanni Battista Mutinelli - Della generazione dell'uomo libri tre - 1769

Rough rustic binding with a title on a blue label affixed to the spine; moisture stain on the front board.

1 blank leaf, [1], 372, 1 blank leaf

FIRST EDITION, unique and rare, of an interesting philosophical-scientific essay concerning eighteenth-century ideas on reproduction. The theories that have unfolded over the centuries around generation are considered, from the Bible to Augustine, up to Buffon's Histoires Naturelles. The possibility of spontaneous generation in nature is sharply denied, which in the eighteenth century still enjoyed some credit and was widely debated.

Giovan Battista Mutinelli (1747-1823) was a Venetian magistrate and poet.

Portrait of the author in the frontispiece, a beautiful typographic vignette at the title page; both engravings signed Lorenzi. Beautiful inhabited initial capitals finely engraved at the beginning of each book.

Double ex libris affixed to the first guard (flyleaf).

Copy in excellent condition, leaves still very clean. Complete, rare and very usable.