Grammatica linguae persicae. Rome, Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, 1661.

4to. Pp. (ii), 60. One blank leaf at end not present. With large engraved vignette on title. Small old marginal repair, no loss. Some age browning to the paper. Later half calf (about 1790). First edition of this early grammar of the Persian language. Carlo Leonelli (1596-1667) was an Italian Carmelite missionary. For more than twenty years he lived and travelled in the Near East, Armenia and Persia. He returned to Rome in 1652 and published works about his experiences in the East. He wasn't a linguist or scholar but this grammar is still valuable as it's based on the language spoken at that time. It contains four pages with the Persian alphabet printed with the ta'liq type. This was a cursive form of the standard naskhi script, first published in print in 1633. "It might be one of the four Persian founts which Raimondi is said to have had available at the Medicean Press" (Smitskamp) See PO 196. Diba p. 76. Schwab 863. Vater p. 280. Zenker BO i, 268.