Opera Politiche di Beniamino Franklin. Nuovamente Raccolte e dall’Originale Inglese Recate nella Lingua Italiana.
Padova: Con Licenza de'Superiori e Privilegio, 1783. Item #1379 8vo. 210 x 145 mm., [8 x 5 ¾ inches. viii, 287 pp. Illustrated with an engraved portrait, unsigned. Bound in contemporary paste paper boards, textblock laced in. Boards soiled with age otherwise a very good copy. First Italian edition of Franklin’s Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces, translated from the English by Pietro Antoniutti, originally published in London in 1779 and edited by Franklin’s friend Benjamin Vaughan. The letters are organized in three parts. The first part include Franklin’s letters leading up to the Revolution in 1776. The second part includes his letters written during the War and the final part discusses his views on provincial politics as it pertains to the various colonies. This work provides a view into the evolution of Franklin’s thinking as circumstances changed in America and became the basis for his relationship with jurists and political thinkers in Italy, struggling to help their country develop into a nation state. Franklin’s Opera Politiche was widely read in Italy and was reviewed in the Giornale Letterario published in Venice in 1783. Paul Leicester Ford, Franklin Bibliography, no. 343. Antonio Pace, Franklin in Italy, pp. 415 no. 49. (1379)
Price: $1,500.00