Susanne Schulz-Falster Catalogue Eighteen - International League ...

Italian Illusionist
37. FOLLINI, Giorgio. Osservazioni fisiche dell’abate
Giorgio Follini,... sul preteso vero uomo incombustibile signor
Giuseppe Lionnet, di nazione comasco. Turin, Bernardino
Barberis, 1808. £550
8vo, pp. 48; blue wrappers.
First edition of this first-hand report on the Italian illusionist Giuseppe
Leoni or Lionnet, or ‘fire-proof man’, who became popular at the beginning
of the nineteenth century in France and Italy. When he put on a number of
shows in Turin, Milan, and Como, the scientist Giorgio Follini, physicist
at the university of Turin, decided to investigate. Follini describes Leoni’s
preparations, such as wiping himself with some spirit – Follini suggests
alum – and then gives a close account of seven of his acts, which involved
being covered with glowing hot metal bars, putting molten lead into his
mouth, etc. – all apparently without showing any ill effect or burns. Follini
intends to show that Leoni’s ‘acts’ involved trickery, sleight of hand or the
application of anti-flammable substances.
OCLC: Bibliothèque Nationale, Padua.
38. [FRANCE – CARICATURE.] Le Joli Petit Jeu De La
Maison Que Pierre A Batie. Dédié à un Enfant gâté. Paris, Pillet
Ainé, 1820. £500
4to, pp. 24, with 10 woodcut plates; woodcut title vignette; original
printed wrappers bound in; modern boards; some spotting in margin
of text.
susanne schulz-falster rare books catalogue eighteen
First edition of this illustrated pro-Bourbon satire disguised as a children’s
book and illustrated with ten woodcut plates. The text is inspired by the
popular English nursery rhyme, ‘The House that Jack built’. The pamphlet,
here with the original printed wrappers present, pillories the impact Louvel’s
assassination of the Duc de Berry had on French political life. The ‘Maison que
Pierre a bâtie’ is solidly built, divided into three chambers, the constitutional
monarchy flanked on either side by the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber
of Deputies, and resting on the foundation of the Catholic Church. A band
of revolutionaries arrive threatening the structure, supported by politicians,
journalists and rabble-rousers, all depicted on the further illustrations. This
leads up to the dramatic plate showing an upraised arm labelled ‘Louvel’
wielding a dagger, in fact a dagger sharpened ‘by the grindstone of liberal
ideas’. The work ends on a triumphalist note however, neither Louvel, nor
the alleged facilitator Elie Decazes, the Minister of Police, succeed and a
new monarchical dawn beckons: ‘Vive le Roi’.
Le Bibliographe Alsacien, 531; OCLC: Harvard, University of Michigan, University
of Connecticut and Melbourne.
39. [FRANCE – FINANCE.] Le Trésorier de France, ou
Mémoire contenant un précis historique de ce qui concerne cet
office, une réfutation des écrits intitulés: Traité sur la jurisdiction des
Trésoriers de France 1777 ... État véritable des Trésoriers de France
1779 ... et des réponses aux critiques anciennes et modernes que ces
Magistrats ont essuyées. Geneva, n.p., 1780. £950
8vo, pp. [iv], xi, [1], 172; a couple of signatures lightly browned,
due to paper stock; contemporary mottled sheep, flat spine gilt in
compartments; with the bookplate of Ayral Bonneville to front
pastedown and ownership stamp to half title.
First edition of this comprehensive history and defence of the office of
trésorier de France, key agents of the crown in the Ancien Regime. The office
of trésorier, part of the financial administration, though not necessarily wellpaid,
and laborious and onerous to boot, was much coveted by the nobility,
because of the connections and influence it afforded. The anonymous
author, according to the preface himself a trésorier, takes particular issue
with two recent publications deriding the office, Jousse’s Traité sur la
jurisdiction des Trésoriers de France (1777) and the anonymous État véritable
des Trésoriers de France (1779). He cites numerous supporting letters from
regional financial offices, where his refutation had been circulated.
He gives a thorough overview of the office of trésorier, explains its
function, its jurisdiction, and organisation. He defends trésoriers against
accusations of financial mismanagement or profiteering, and comments on
the newly instituted controls by the financial administration.
Not in Kress or Goldsmiths’; OCLC: Columbia and Lyon.