A new plan and useful introduction to the Italian. Compiled from the best grammarians, who have wrote in the Tuscan language. Together with a choice collections of Italian idioms...
London: printed for J. Wilcox, at Virgil's Head, 1739. First edition, 8vo, pp. [2], iv, 448; full contemporary calf, rubbed and chaffed, but sound; mild dampstain pervades the first several gatherings; all else very good. "There is certainly no European language, but the French, which enters into competition with it, which, however, is less useful to those whose business or curiosity leads them into the Mediterranean Seas, the Italian being there almost universally known, as in Greece, Morocco, Turkey, and in all the Levant Islands where, generally speaking, all business with Europeans is transacted in the Italian language" (from the Preface). Of particular interest is the alphabetical "Collection of Idioms, Phrases, Cant-words, &c." (the cant marked by asterisks) which occupies nearly two-thirds of the book; this section is in double column, with the left column in Italian, and the English equivalent(s) in the right. An uncommonly rare book: not in the NUC; 3 in OCLC (none in the U.S.: BL, National Library of Scotland, and McMaster); ESTC adds Maria Curie-Sktodowska University Library in Poland. Alston, XII, part 2, *63 (who had not seen a copy). Item #55396
Price: $1,500.00
