B. L. Montgomery, General, Eighth Army [Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery (1887-1976), 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein; British Eighth Army]
Publication details:
[General Head Quarters, British Eighth Army.] 'July, 1943.' ['2827/2/GHQP/6-43'.]
£120.00
1p., 4to. 25 lines of text. A frail survival. In good condition, on lightly aged and creased paper. Signed with facsimile of signature of 'B. L. Montgomery.' Divided into six points, the text begins: '1. The time has now come to carry the war into Italy, and into the Continent of Europe. The Italian Overseas Empire has been exterminated; we will now deal with the home country.' The last point reads: '6. To each one of you, whatever may be your rank or employment, I would say: | GOOD LUCK AND GOOD HUNTING IN THE HOME COUNTRY OF ITALY'.
Sir Richard Plasket, Chief Secretary to the Government, Palace, Valletta [Giuseppe Pace of Casal Luca, Malta]
Publication details:
'Palace, Valletta [Malta], 30th October, 1823.'
£120.00
On one side of a 43 x 31.5 cm piece of laid paper, with 'JL GRAN | MASSO' watermark. On stained paper with slight wear along head and slight pitting affecting a few words of text. An attractive official communication, in two columns (English on left and Italian on right) beneath the British royal crest. Begins: 'WHEREAS it has been represented to HIS HONOR THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, that, Giuseppe Pace, of Casal Luca, having, about half-past eight o'Clock, on the evening of the Twenty-eighth instant, repaired to certain premises belonging to his family, situate in Strada St.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), poet and author of the 'Imaginary Conversations' [Julius Hare; Augustus Hare; Robert Southey; John Taylor, London publisher; Taylor and Hessey]
Publication details:
'Florence Oct. 23 [1823]'.
£180.00
The item consists of a 25.5 x 20.5 cm bifolium, with the text of Landor's letter on the recto of the first leaf, from which a central rectangle (roughly 10 x 20.5 cm) carrying the amended copy has been cut away for transmission to the printer. Otherwise the item is in fair condition, on ligthly-aged paper. The verso of the second leaf is addressed to 'Mr. Taylor | 13 Waterloo Place | London', and carries three postmarks. The letter reads: 'Sir, | There is a passage in page 47 which Mr Hare [Julius Hare, who had] inserted from a letter I wrote hastily to his brother [Augustus Hare].
Aldo Castellani (1877-1971), Italian pathologist and bacteriologist [Umberto II, King of Italy (1904-1983); George Bilainkin (c.1903-1981), journalist; Queen Marie José (1906-2001)]
Publication details:
Cascais, Portugal; on letterhead of the 'Casa di S. M. il Re'. 7 October 1954.
£280.00
2pp., folio. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Castellani, who had accompanied the Italian royal family into exile in Portugal in 1946, is responding to two letters from Bilainkin, loyally attempting to conceal the unhappy state of relations between the royal couple ('We were never happy', the Queen declared after her husband's death; and there were rumours of homosexual affairs on the King's part).
John Kenyon (1784-1856), poet and patron, who encouraged his cousin Elizabeth Barrett's marriage to Robert Browning
Publication details:
Without date or place [the poem published in 1849].
£450.00
2pp., 4to. 35 lines of verse. On a leaf of laid paper with watermark 'J WHATMAN | TURKEY MILL'. Paginated 13-14. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. The first page begins with the line 'The shrouding soil, and give it back to air,' and the second page ends with the line 'Won it's [sic] dark truth, and Gaspar fed on such.' The verses in this manuscript are published on pp.19-21 of 'A Day at Tivoli: with other Verses' (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, Paternoster-row, 1849).
Leone Levi (1821-1888), Italian-born Jewish jurist and statistician, Professor of Commercial Law, King's College, London [William Clarke Gellibrand (1791-1884) of Albyns, Essex; Bible Society]
Publication details:
107 Farrar's Building, Temple, London; 30 January 1869.
£90.00
2pp., 12mo. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. Two years before Gellibrand (whose name Levi misspells 'Jellibrand') made a financial contribution 'towards the Missionary work to the Italians in London'. Levi has not troubled him since, 'but before we close the account of 1868 the treasurer tells me that we must collect some more in order not to be in debt'. He asks if Gellibrand will 'kindly renew' his gift 'to the object'. He is sorry not to have met 'your & our friends at the Bible Society', whose work he values highly, but whose committee meet 'at an inconvenient hour in the day'.
Axel Munthe [Axel Martin Fredrik Munthe] (1857-1949), Swedish physician and author of 'The Story of San Michele' [Judith Masefield (1904-1988), daughter of the Poet Laureate John Masefield]
Publication details:
Written from Italy and London in 1930 and (perhaps) 1931.
£1,600.00
'The Story of San Michele' is one of the most popular works of the twentieth century, and this delightful correspondence bears ample testimony to the extraordinary allure of its author. The eight letters are entirely legible, in fair condition on aged paper. They total 3 pp in folio, and 8 pp in 4to. The sequence is tentative, none of the letters giving the year. The numerous errors, in large part due to Munthe's growing blindness, are largely unnoticed in the following transcripts. Letter One (2 pp, 4to). 'Rome Villa Svezia Via Aldrovandi 27 Feb 8 [1930]'.
96pp., 8vo, illustrated paper wraps, illustrated throughout, slightly ruckled, one small spot, mainly good+ The "Exhibition" includesFurniture, Tapestries, Marbles, Bronzes, Embroideries, Lace. No copy listed on COPAC. WordlCat lists three copies in the US.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, playwright, novelist, and critic
Publication details:
No place, 10 Aug. 1883
£850.00
Three pages, 8vo, bifiolium, final page laid down on card, as is the envelope addressed in his hand, text legible and complete: "Your protégé & Mr Cowen's has not tracked me iinto the wilds of Oxfordshire where I am staying for ten days or so on a visit to Jowett [Master of Balliol] - and as Watts [-Dunton, companion] & I are going to the seaside the week after next I date say I may escape the jaws of the Garibaldian [?] - which a rather mixed lot (as Yanks say) they is [sic] and will be.
Dated in pencil in another hand '14/6/918 [14 June 1918]'.
£165.00
8vo, 1 p. On graph paper. Fair, on aged paper, with traces of mount on reverse. Headed 'Saluto ai combattenti', the eight-line poem (which does not appear to have been published) begins 'O figli' and ends 'l'ora della vittoria'.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), Scottish poet [Rudolph Ackermann; Woodburn]
Publication details:
Monico [Monaco?]; September 1828.
£150.00
4to, 1 p. Twenty-lines. Text clear and complete. He has found 'il Barone' and is going to see 'Der Freishutz'. Monico is 'una gran bella citta', where he has seen 'molte belle cose'. He finds the Madonna of Rafael 'Divina'. A postscript concerns the print-seller Ackermann, as well as the art dealer Woodburn, and 'Cockerill'. The reverse carries a closely-written 30-line manuscript, in another hand, apparently in German, and followed by an indecipherable signature. It contains at least two references to 'Campball' [sic].
4to, 4 pp. Bifolium. 87 lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, with wear to extremities and a spike hole to one corner. Written in ink in a Victorian hand, and with three changes in pencil. Docketed at head 'The art of Vocalization'. Towards beginning writes that the subject is one which he has 'studied many years in close connexion with the most eminent Masters of Italy, most of whom I may rank among my personal friends, and the pith of whose conversations, added to my own experience I propose embodying in a few short essays upon the Formation of the Voice'.
Giovanni Antonio Galignani (1757-1821), Paris bookseller and publisher of English works [Richard Twining (1772-1857), tea merchant]
Publication details:
Letter: 'Venerdi mattina' (docketed with date 8 November 1796). Receipt dated 21 January 1797.
£800.00
Letter: 12mo, 1 p. On bifolium. Text clear and complete. On aged and ruckled paper. Slight damage to second leaf caused by breaking open of wafer. Addressed to 'Illustrissimo Signore'. Having 'un affare di qualche importanza alle nove', he would like to give Twining his lesson (presumably in Italian) the following morning at 8 o'clock. He hopes that coming half an hour early does not cause any inconvence. Receipt: on one side of a slip of paper, 7 x 19.5 cm. Headed 'Memorandum del Signor Twining'. For '18 Lezioni la prima delle quali fa data li 15 Novembee', and signed 'Galignani'.
Cristoforo Negri (1809-1896), Italian politician and first President (1867-1872) of the Italian Geographical Society [Jeremiah James Colman (1830-1898), Norwich mustard manufacturer]
Publication details:
27 August 1868; on letterhead of Carrow House, Norwich.
£120.00
12mo, 2 pp. Bifolium. Fair, on aged paper with a little light staining. The recto carries the seventeen-line letter to a 'Gentilissima Dama', in response to a request for an autograph. On the reverse of the second leaf is a four-line poem, signed and dated by Negri, beginning 'Come un Nume che si adora'. In the letter Negri writes that he does not have 'la presunzione di credere che il mio autografo meriti di essere conservato'.
T. S. Eliot [The Italian Institute; Dante Alighieri]
Publication details:
July, 1950. 'This journal is edited by The Italian Institute [39 Belgrave Square S.W.1]'. Printed by T. G. Norris, London, N.W.8.
£100.00
Gallup C552. 4to (leaf dimensions 28 x 22.5 cm), 40 pp. Stapled. In original blue printed wraps. Worn and dogeard on aged paper, with minor staining at foot of front wrap and first leaf. The 'Calendar' at the front lists, on 4 July [1950], the 'Lecture by Mr. T. S. Eliot, O.M.: "What Dante Means to Me," with H.E. the Italian Ambassador in the Chair.' The printed version, titled 'TALK ON DANTE | by T. S. Eliot', is in small type, and covers pages 13 to 18, with p.12 carrying a full-page photograph of Eliot shaking hands with a smiling figure (presumably the ambassador).
[ Andrews, bookseller and bookbinder [?]] Lord M[oun]t Edgcumbe
Publication details:
Twickenham, 27 Feb. (no year).
£75.00
Four pages, 8vo, vestiges of an album page on final page, text clear and complete. He is sending some MSS. to be bound up, giving detailed instructions. He reminds Andrews of previous work, and insists on secrecy. He asks him to post (and pay for) a "foreign letter", and asks "how the Opera succeeds & if the men singers are liked. In a postscript he asks for the third volume of "Johnson's Life" since he has nearly finished the second.
Letter to Sir James Rennell Rodd from H. Nelson gay
Publication details:
Palazzo Orsini, Rome, 'Xmas 1916'.
£45.00
The author is obscure, but the letter is addressed to 'Sir Rennell' [Sir James Rennell Rodd (1858-1941), diplomat and author]. 2 pages, 16mo, creased but in good condition. A florid missive beginning 'In this tempest of egotism and hate which has plunged us all into Teutonic darkness, you will not have forgotten, my dear Sir Rennell, the lines of Coleridge: | [...]'.
J. Auerbach(?), of Her Britannic Majesty's Consulate, Trieste [Hungarian horse breeding; Tattersall's; Lipizzaner horses; equine]
Publication details:
14 June 1898; on letterheads of Her Britannic Majesty's Consulate, Trieste.
£95.00
12mo, 9 pp. On three bifoliums attached to one another with green string. Text clear and complete. Good, on aged paper. Recipient not named. The writer (possibly the Consul himself) is responding to an enquiry regarding 'the probable price of a pair of horses about 15 hands'. 'The kind of horses that you speak of are known here as "Jukers," light, active, strong, <?>, fast trotting, able to go 14 kilometres an hour. A pair of horses of such description 5 years old & sound will cost about fls 1200 or say £100.
Io. Hieronymus Frezza Sculp. Rome Sup. Lic. Ann. 1713, e dal Medemo Frezza si vendano in Piazza Barberini
£85.00
Dimensions of paper roughly twelve and a half inches by fifteen and a half. Dimensions of plate roughly eleven inches by six and a half. On top of a stone plinth two eagles support a crowned crest with shell motif, showing a crowned eagle over a castle. The inscription on the base reads 'DIANAE FABVLAS | OLIM | A DOMINICO ZAMPERIO | PICTORE | VVLGO DOMENICHINO | IN PALATIO BASSANI | PRINCIPIS IVSTINIANI | DE PICTAS'. Apparently the frontispiece or engraved title to an oblong folio volume published in 1713.
Edvige Pesce Gorini, Italian poet, editor of the 'Giornale dei Poeti' [Violet Bonham Carter (1887-1969); Mark Raymond Bonham Carter (1922-1994), Baron Bonham-Carter, Liberal politician]
Publication details:
21 February 1946; 15 May 1947; and 28 July 1948. All three from Via Angelo Poliziano No. 69, Rome.
£120.00
Text of all three items clear and complete. All three on lightly aged paper, creased and with some wear to extremities. Letter One (8vo, 1 p; 20 lines of text): She thanks Bonham Carter for her 'kind and appreciative letter' and 'will see that through the English Embassy' she receives 'a copy of my short story: "I due prigionieri", of which your son is the protagonist'. (An officer in the Grenadier Guards, during the war Mark Bonham Carter had escaped from a prison camp in northern Italy.) Describes material she is sending relating to her 'literary career'.
Giulia Porru [India; Indian studies in Italy; Italian bibliography]
Publication details:
Pubblicazioni della R. Universita degli Studi di Firenze Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia. - III Serie - Volume X. Firenze [Florence] - Felice le Monnier - Editore - MCMXL-XVIII'.
£85.00
4to: viii + 257 pp. In original grey printed wraps. Internally tight, on lightly-aged and foxed paper. Wraps spotted and worn, with chipping to extremities. The preface describes the work as 'una bibliografia descrittiva degli studi di Indianistica fatti in Italia nel periodo che va dal 1911 al 1937.' A descriptive bibliography of Indian studies in Italy, 1911 to 1937. Scarce in Britain: COPAC lists copies at the British Library, Oxford and SOAS.
Aged Poor Society, London [Augusto Bazzoni; Roman Catholic; philanthropy; charity]
Publication details:
London, December, 1831.'
£45.00
4to: 1 p. Printed on the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium of paper watermarked 'R BARNARD | 1828'. Fifteen lines of text. Text clear and complete on aged, creased paper with chipping to extremities, and the two leaves of the bifolium nearly detached. Docketed in contemporary hands '819' at the head of the printed page, and 'No. 72' on the reverse of the second leaf 'No. 72'.
Alessandro Maffei, Italian Minister to Austria, 1859-67, and Ambassador to the United States, 1867-71
Publication details:
14 April 1866. Place not stated.
£56.00
On one side of a piece of laid paper, 11 x 18 cm. Laid down on a slightly larger piece of paper. Good: lightly aged with three neat vertical folds. Reads 'Oh! land of beauty - sun-lit Italy! How often do I fondly think of thee, | And of the days gone by . . . . . ! | [signature] A. Maffei | April 14th | 1866.'
[Giuseppe Garibaldi; nineteenth-century Dublin street-ballad; Victorian Ireland; Eire; the Roman Catholic Church; papacy]
Publication details:
Date [c.1863] and place [Dublin?] not stated.
£250.00
Printed on one side of a piece of wove paper, dimensions roughly 30.5 x 11.5 cm. Good, on aged, and lightly spotted and creased paper. Clear impression above title of engraving (5.5 x 6.5 cm) showing a knight, dismounted from his horse, vizor down and shield on arm, combating with a dragon somewhat akin to a huge wild boar. At the foot of the item, beneath the last line of the poem, another engraving, 2.5 x 8.5 cm, showing two cherubs blowing trumpets into an arrangement of hour-glass and two sickles. Heavily worn type.
One page, 8vo, text as follows (square brackets when I can't read the Italian): "mova, come le antiche che la [?] a maestro d' sapienza politica e d'arte luminosa, è e [infende?] d'essere [affermazinne?] d'cultura e d'intellectualita. Il chiedere a gran voce l'istituzione d'una universitata italiana d'una universita italiana a Trieste, è [?] [affermaginnne?] d'italianita & d'civita: e nessu no [?] contrastar quella, senza rinnegar questa."
Torino, 8 October 1938. XXI.' Signed in top left-hand corner '<Vican?> | XVIIe'.
£250.00
Printed on piece of thick paper 31.5 x 22.5 cm. Dimensions of image 24 x 18 cm. Removed from mount, and with glue adhering to reverse and in thin strip at head (not affecting image). Small closed tear in border at foot, just beneath Mascagni's dating of his note. Soft-focus black and white head and shoulders shot, showing a firm-jawed jowlly bow-tied Mascagni staring abstractedly to his right, with a medal in his buttonhole.
Edward Hutton (1875-1969), British writer on travel and Italy
Publication details:
21 April 1934; Rome.
£10.00
One page, on back of printed postcard. Very good. Photograph of the Via Appia on reverse. Reads 'Dear Sir | In reply to your request I have pleasure in sending you this'.
James Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell (1858-1941), British diplomat and classical scholar
Publication details:
20 February [1902], on embossed letterhead of the British Embassy, Rome.
£38.00
12mo: 2 pp. Eleven lines of text. Very good. Having just received it from London, Rodd is sending Crawford the book he could not get in Rome which he wanted to send him as a birthday present. 'It is written by a great friend of mine who knows better than any one the history of the first voyages to America and the discovery of the Great Southern Sea. I think you will like it.' In an envelope, on aged paper, with postmarks and Italian postage stamp. Addressed to 'Harold Crawford, Villa Crawford, St Agnello di Sorrento'.
Carlo Giovanni Battista Marochetti, Baron Marochetti (1805-1867), sculptor
Publication details:
Undated and with place not stated.
£35.00
12mo: 1 p. On aged and creased paper, divided into two parts by a horizontal tear, which has been repaired with three paper labels. A square of paper from previous mounting (with 'Marochetti Sculptor' in contemporary hand) adhering to reverse. Accepting an invitation with the greatest pleasure and apologising ('je vous demande mille fois pardon') for not having been to tell her so. He did not know that she was there: no one told him anything and he thought her note had been sent from her house.