Hebrew Printing in Sabbioneta 1 AFFO, Ireneo - Schulz-Falster Rare ...

Freedom of the Press
81 MIRABEAU, Honoré-Gabriel Riquetti. Sur la Liberté de la
Presse, imité de l’Anglois, de Milton. Londres, 1788. £450
8vo, pp. 66; entirely uncut in the original wrappers; corners frayed, and
edges a little dust-soiled; faint damp-stain to lower corner of Wrst two
leaves.
First edition of Mirabeau’s pamphlet on the freedom of the press, based
on and in the tradition of Milton’s Areopagitica: A speech for the liberty of
unlicens’d printing. Published on the eve of the French Revolution, this
pamphlet came at the height of a campaign for greater freedom of the press
sparked oV by Malesherbes, the former directeur de la librairie who did
much to soften censorship of books.
Cioranescu 45152; for a detailed discussion see R. Darnton & D. Roche, Revolution
in Print, the Press in France 1775–1800, 1989, pp. 50–66.
The Economics of Prostitution
82 [MOET, Jean-Pierre.] Code de Cythère, ou Lit de justice
d’Amour. Erotopolis, chez le Dieu Harpocrates, à l’Enseigne de la
Nuit 7746, [i.e. Paris, 1746]. [Bound with:] [LOUBAYSSIN DE
LAMARCA, Francisco.] Histoire des Cocus. La Haye [Paris],
1746. £2000
Two works in one volume, 12mo, pp. [viii], lx, 81, [3] blank; 183, [1]
blank; title vignette, typographic headpieces; contemporary cats-paw
calf, spine decoratively gilt; two-gilt-lettered spine labels; a Wne copy
with blind-stamped monogram to title, reading CG with the motto
‘toujours prêt’.
An interesting volume combining two clandestine eighteenth century publications,
one a spoof proposal for the economic running of prostitution in
Paris, the second a ‘roman à cornes’, translated from the Spanish.
I. First edition, rare, of this brilliant solution to the problem of prostitution,
in fact a facetious argument for the position that ‘the world’s oldest
profession’ is not a problem at all, but a Wnancial asset to the state. With
the help of an elaborate display of proWt and loss accounting, Moet shows
how, after nationalisation, prostitution beneWts society and enriches the
nation. The Code de Cythère itself consists of forty-one articles, regulating
prostitution in minute detail, in the best tradition of the Ancien Régime
bureaucracy. The work concludes with the Wnal balance sheet for the staterun
prostitution service, where prostitutes are carefully classiWed and assigned
a sliding scale of maintenance costs. The income generated, again
on a sliding scale, is oVset against rent, clothing, administrative and medical
costs. Even taking into account extraneous expenses such as hairdressing
and cosmetics, and printing costs for receipts and ‘billets doux’, the proWt
generated for the state is impressive. The Code de Cythère was reprinted in
susanne schulz-falster rare books