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

exile. Even in England his radical publications met with opposition and the
threat of legal proceedings, so it was eventually in the Netherlands, that a
collected edition was published, the present Recueil de Pieces curieuses. It
contained the Discours which he had originally written for Victor Amadeus
II. Now it was dedicated to Charles of Bourbon, King of Naples, in the
hope that he would reign over the whole of Italy and free it from papal
oppression. Incidentally this is also the Wrst clear statement of the idea of
Italian unity in the eighteenth century.
The volume also contains his Histoire abrégée de la profession sacerdotale
ancienne, summing up the discussions of the role of the priests of the past
century. This was followed by Nazarénus et Lycurgus mis en parallèle, which
made even more explicit the ideas contained in the Discours. The Wnal section
is of particular importance as it contains the Wrst translation of Swift’s
Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of poor People in Ireland, from being
a Burden to their Parents or Country, one of his most savage and powerful
tracts.
Conlon 36:632; Brunet IV, 1086; L’Illuminismo Italiano alla Fondazione Feltrinelli,
436; Peignot II, 231; Teerink 680.
How to Learn a Language
97 [RADONVILLIERS, Claude-Francois Lizarde de.]
De la Manière d’apprendre les Langues. Paris, Saillant, Libraire,
1768. £500
8vo, pp. xxiv, 278; entirely uncut in the original pattern paper
wrappers; a little dog-eared, lower corner of upper wrapper worn away;
a very large wide-margined copy.
First edition of this introduction to language learning by the former Jesuit
Radonvilliers (1709–1789). In an entirely modern view, Radonvilliers
stresses the importance of practicing ‘spoken language’ when learning a
foreign language. He rejects strict grammatical approaches, and maintains
that analogy will be the main help in language acquisition. He includes
interesting chapters on translation, and suggests that translation should be
approached in a number of steps, Wrst the individual words should be translated,
keeping the familiar word order, only later the syntax of the foreign
language should be introduced.
Radonvilliers was a language teacher at a number of Jesuit colleges before
he left the Jesuits in 1742. He also taught the French King Louis XVI, who
later elevated him to the rank of Conseiller d’État in 1774. After Marivaux’s
death he was elected to the Académie Française.
Cioranescu 52113; not in Sommervogel (VI, 1384), where his other works are
listed.
catalogue fourteen