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Suppressed in Rome, 1818

[Manuscript title:] Il Zibaldone Giornale di Felice Mariottini, proibido et sospeso dalla Segretaio di Stato di Roma con la di lui Risposta MSS. [With:] Il Zibaldone. Nos. 1 & 2, Gennaio 1818 [All Published]. [And:] Manifesto, broadside announcement [and:] Manuscript Response to the Journal’s Suppression.

Rome: Presso di Carlo Mordacchini, 1817-1818.

Price: $7,500.00

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About the item

1 vols. 4to and Folio. Contemporary quarter brown leather and blue pastepaper boards. Some rubbing. De Cesare, Raffaele, Della vita e degli scritti di Felice Mariottini (2002); Giuseppe Crimi, Satira e schermaglie a Roma nell’Ottocento: per «Il Zibaldone» e Il Serpente dell’arcade Felice Mariottini, Atti e Memorie dell'Arcadia 10 (2021), 365-422.

Item #377964

Remarkable volume containing the two issues of Il Zabildone published in Rome by Felice Mariottini, with the broadside announcing the publication, and a 28-page manuscript of Mariottini’s response to the supression of the journal by the Segretaio di Stato di Roma (Secretary of State). Comprising:

A. [Printed Broadside] Manifesto. Roma: Presso di Carlo Mordacchini, 1817. Broadside announcement of Il Zibaldone as a weekly beginning January 1818, with a call for subscriptions. Old repairs to tears, top portions of four letters in title in pen facsimile (some ink burn). Small ink stamp at top margin. Three lines from Dante, beginning Lo secol primo, quant’ oro, fu bello … and 18 lines of text, with 3 lines of information for subscribers; and the imprint below.
B. Il Zibaldone. No. 1. Roma 3. Gennaio 1818 Pp. 1-8. Dai torchi di Carlo Mordacchini
C. Il Zibaldone. No. 2. Roma 10. Gennaio 1818. Pp. 9-16. Dai torchi di Carlo Mordacchini
D. [Manuscript:] Il Serpente, compilatore del Zibaldone, proibito della Segretaio di Stato, agli Animali ragionavoli quanto irragionavoli della Congresa. 28 pages, closely written.

Felice Mariottini (1756-1827), ecclesiastic, diplomat, and author, tutor of the Duc d’Orleans (later Louis-Philippe I), was a francophile literary man active in the modern Roman republic, and translator of Milton’s Paradise Lost into italian verse. Active in journalism under the republic and under French occupation, his fortunes waned after the restauration of the Pontifical government in 1814.
After two issues, Il Zibaldone was suppressed by the secretary of state, an enemy of Marioottini. Guiseppe Crimi describes Il Serpente as Mariottini’s retort to individuals frequenting the Caffè della piazza del Clementino (today piazza Nicosia), “operetta satirica circolante manoscritta” (a satirical pamphlet circulating in manuscript). Il Serpente concludes with a call to resist tyranny. “Without being seditionists or rebels, let us show ourselves to be constant and intrepid. The opinion of the good is stronger than the abusive power of evil: it dissipates blindness and shadows.”
Crimi reports 16 locations for manuscript copies of Il Serpente (fourteen in Italy, one in Basel, and one in Aix en Provence).
RARE.