Luigi Vaslet - Introduzione alla Scienza delle antichità romane - 1811

Interesting and uncommon early 19th-century Sicilian edition of this famous historical-didactic treatise dedicated to the institutions, culture, and customs of ancient Rome. The text, originally composed in French by the educator Luigi (Louis) Vaslet, is presented here in its Italian translation, enriched with excerpts from philological-area notes borrowed from the notes of the celebrated German historian Cristoforo Cellario (Christoph Cellarius) and with further annotations by the editor.
The work is conceived as an organic and scientific compendium, structured in sessions and chapters (such as the chapter on the Comitia and the various forms of division of the Roman People). It benefits from a rich and learned apparatus of annotations printed and placed at the outer margins of the pages, containing continuous references to classical sources (Livy, Pliny, Ovid, Cicero).

APPARATO TABELLARE E CONTENUTI SPECIALI

The volume stands out for the presence of a very useful and detailed tabular synoptic apparatus and numismatic material out of and in the text, essential for students of the time:
* Table of the Roman Calendar (p. 158): A splendid and clear synoptic table that teaches the complex decomposition of the Roman months divided into Kalends, Nones, and Ides (with explicit references to leap years).
* Numismatic Tables of Conversion (pp. 189-192): A series of rare and curious comparative prospects in which the value of ancient Roman coins (Sesterci, Denarii, Aurei, Solidi, Follis) is converted and reduced into the current currencies of the nineteenth century, specifically:
• In current Italian currency (reduced to Lire and Soldi Fiorentini).
• In current French currency (according to the calculation of P. Arduinio).
• In current English currency (reduced to Pounds, Shillings, Pence, and Farthings).
• in current Dutch currency

NOTE OF CHARM / PERIOD PROVENANCE
The volume preserves an exceptional testimony of “lived life” and nineteenth-century student micro-history. On the contemporaneous flyleaves there are notes and ink doodles by a contemporary hand (one dated 1820): a rare handwritten four-line Italian verse, a curious pen drawing depicting an animal, and a famous classical Latin quotation drawn from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (Semivirumque bovem...). A detail that gives the piece a character of absolute uniqueness for collectors of ancient school memorabilia.

TECHNICAL DATA & CONDITIONS

* Author: Luigi Vaslet (with extracts from Cristoforo Cellario).
* Title: Introduction to the science of Roman antiquities translated from the French and enriched with some annotations.
* Place and Year of Publication: In Palermo, M. DCCC. XI. (1811).
* Printer/Publisher: Per le Stampe di Barravecchia / A spese di Francesco Abbate.
* Language: Italian (with quotations in Latin).
* Binding: Contemporary half-leather binding.
* pages: 194

The binding is solid and well fixed to the textile structure, though it shows the normal signs of time and use at the margins and on the spine, with abrasions, tears and losses to the boards.
* Interior condition: The volume is complete and intact. The inner sheets are free from tears, rips, or annotations. Normal foxing and browning of time due to the type of paper from the early 19th century, which do not affect the perfect legibility of the text."}]}]