Publisher: Paris & Orléans: Paris: “Édition de Cazin, Rue des Maçons,” & Orléans: C.A.I. Jacob, 1786.

Illustration: Engraved frontispiece depicting allegorical and comic figures; ornamental devices and woodcut tailpieces throughout.

Edition: Paris & Orléans printing, “Édition de Cazin,” 1786.

Binding: Contemporary speckled calf, gilt-ruled, spine gilt with floral tools and red morocco title-label. Marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Binding rubbed and worn at joints, head and foot of spine chipped, but still attractive and entirely sound.

Description: Pocket 12mo. The famous mock-epic La Secchia rapita (The Rape of the Bucket), composed by the Italian poet Alessandro Tassoni, lampooning the rivalries of Italian city-states through the absurd story of a war fought over a stolen bucket. Long considered the first true mock-heroic poem in European literature, Tassoni’s work influenced Boileau, Pope, Byron, and countless satirists.

Condition: Good. Binding rubbed with losses to spine ends, joints tender but holding. Gilt still visible, marbled endpapers fresh, textblock clean and crisp with engraved frontispiece sharp.

Annotation: This is more than a satirical poem — it is a landmark in the history of European satire, here presented in the famous “Cazin” format that collectors prize for its mix of refinement and subversion. Cazin’s editions, often published under shifting imprints in Paris and Orléans, carried a reputation for both literary elegance and scandalous allure, making them objects of clandestine desire for 18th-century readers. To own Tassoni’s parody of civic pomp in this edition is to hold a satirical classic within a satirical format — a perfect union of text and book history.

Item #174

Price: $300.00