Secretaria di Apollo: or, Letters from Apollo, Historical and Political; directed to the most eminent princes, statesmen and politicians in the world, as well antient and modern. With curious remarks on the classic authors, and other Greek and Latin historians. By the famous Trajano Boccalini. Now first made English from the original Italian. Two volumes.

[16], 304pp; [8], 280pp, engraved frontispiece. 8vo. A very crisp clean copy. Fine full contemporary panelled calf, simple raised spine bands. From the Library of Invercauld Castle, Braemar, armorial bookplate on verso of each titlepage. ESTC T110883. Antonio Santacroce was born in Padua in 1624, and in the Preface to his Frammenti storici della guerra di Candia, announced that he wanted to describe 'the revolutions of Italy and of the civil wars of England with the intention of beginning from where the cavalier Biondi finished with his life'. His premature death, before 1653, ultimately prevented him from writing this history of the English civil war, but he did comment on English political events in the Secretaria d'Apollo, a work of political-literary reflections published in 1653. It was based on the model of Boccalini's Ragguagli del Parnaso, and consisted of a series of imaginary letters sent by Apollo on the earth, commenting on the most recent European events, and was first translated into English in 1704. Santacroce imagined that the monarch of the Parnassus addressed the English people directly, asserting that until then, whilst tyrants had often been killed by 'a sudden and disorderly fury' of the people, this was the first time that a crowned head was 'condemned by the subjects to the hands of the hangman' and that the English people did little to oppose this 'unprecedented' and 'sacrilegious' decision of Parliament.…