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CLASSICAL ROMANCE IN THE CIRCLE OF LORD BYRON. Parma: ex Regio Typographeio (viz. Bodoni), 1786. Quarto (11 5/8" x 8 7/16", 296mm x 215mm). [Full collation availble.] With two engraved vignettes integral with the text: a medallion of Polyhymnia (ÎΠΠΥΠΠΠΠ) to the title-page, and Apollo at an altar with the arms of the dedicatee José Nicolás de Azara (engraved by Cagnoni after Joseph Lucatelli) to the opening of the dedicatory essay (Ï 3r). Bound in contemporary (British in the style of Bozerian?) red straight-grained morocco with a tau-form gilt meander border. On the spine, five raised bands. In the panels, a central sun within a pointillé field. Author gilt to the second panel, "PARMAE" gilt to the tail. Gilt fillet to the edges of the boards. Gilt inside dentelle. Watered green silk doublure end-papers. All edges of the text-block gilt. Celadon silk marking-ribbon. Rubbed at the extremities, with some wear to the fore-corners. Faint foxing to a handful of leaves, but altogether a mellow and handsome example. Gift inscription in ink to the recto of the front free end paper: "Scrope Berdmore Davies/ E Dono/ Honor: Caroli Townshend." Giambattista Bodoni (i.e., Giovanni Battista, 1740-1813) was a type-designer, typographer, editor, publisher -- and the sort of celebrity that drew admiration throughout the Western world (it is often asserted that Benjamin Franklin wrote him a "fan letter," but where is it?). Indeed, he came to be sought-after by crowned heads including the King Charles III (and IV) of Spain -- to whose minister José Nicolás de Azara (1730-1804) the volume is dedicated -- and Napoleon. Bodoni, after whom many type-faces are named, worked with Firmin Didot in Paris to develop a new mode of humanistic letterpress, one with strong distinctions between thick and thin parts of individual characters, generally called "Modern." The present volume displays his charming and legible Greek text, largely free of the abbreviations that plague earlier settings, as well as Hebrew and Arabic text. Bodoni's typographical panache and restraint suffuse the volume Longus (Î Ï Î Î Î¿Ï ) -- which may in fact be a typographical error for Î»Ï Î Î¿Ï ("word" or "literary work") -- is the name associated with one of the earliest surviving (AD IIc) novels: Daphnis and Chloe, a pastoral romance. Of the author there is nothing to be said. The novel, however, is among the most cherished pieces of literature from the ancient world. Each raised by a adoptive father (a goatherd and shepherd), the young couple fall in love, kiss, go on various misadventures and have their real parentage revealed before living happily ever after. The Nachleben of the work is essentially all of Western literature. The prologue to the novel (pp. xxxiii-lxxiii, following a long address to the reader by Bodoni) is an essay by Paolo Maria Paciaudi (1710-1785), an antiquary and librarian to the Duke of Parma. Paciaudi (a Theatine priest) seeks to draw the line from the ancient "erotic" novel through to the modern "Romanzi" -- romances. Paciaudi surveys the other surviving ancient novelists (Chariton, Achilles Tatius, Xenophon of Ephesus) and treats the burgeoning modern genre. Both parts of the volume will have appealed to Scrope Berdmore Davies (1782-1852), who was given the volume by The Hon. Charles Townshend (Charles Frederick Powlett, 1785-1823; from 1810 he was 2nd Baron Bayling). Townshend matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in Lent term of 1806; Lord Byron to the same college in Easter term of 1808. It is the recipient of the gift who was far closer to Lord Byron; indeed, Davies was the dedicatee of his 1818 Parisina. Davies was also a literary adviser to the great Romantic poet, and so Paciaudi's prologue will have provided a rich background for their conversations. As part of Byron's "Synod" of close friends, Davies saw him off at Dover in 1816. He was also a notable Regency dandy and roué; the present volume certainly fits the taste of such a man.
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