‘POCILI, Andrea’, i.e. REINA, Placido.
Delle rivolutioni della Citta di Palermo avvenute l’anno 1647.
Verona, Per Fra[n]cesco de’ Rossi, 1648.£2,250.00
FIRST EDITION. 4to. pp. (iv) 344 (ii). Roman and italic letter. Half-title with motto. Typographical ornaments. Tiny hole affecting first initial to A1r, marginal and interlinear tear to A3, early repair to blank margin of verso. Clean knife cut to B3 without loss, one or two smaller without loss, and to blank upper margins. Ss4v-Tt1r with light stain affecting a few lines, the odd light marginal mark, a very good, clean, crisp copy in contemp. brown sprinkled paper over pasteboard, red morocco label gilt, red mottled edges, C19 paper label to upper board. Occasional contemp. marginalia, ex libris to t-p, ‘Ad usu[m] Jos. Aug. Ramonii(?) (illegible)’.
Rare first edition of this account of the revolution in Palermo in 1647 against Spanish rule, by a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Messina, who portrayed the Messinians as loyal subjects, in contrast to the rebellious Palermitans. Simultaneous with the crucial stages of the English Civil War, the Sicilian revolution was less successful, the rebels being defeated in the summer of 1648.
The year 1647 began with a crisis in the supply of wheat in Sicily, caused by successive poor harvests and heavy rains and droughts; a single grain of wheat could cost one hundred reales. In May, after another rise in the tax on wheat, citizens in Palermo rioted and attacked the Praetorian Palace, freeing prisoners including Antonio La Pilosa, a miller, who incited the crowd to greater violence. The revolution then spread all over the country, except in Messina, ‘which never missed the opportunity to show its loyalty to the Crown in comparison to rebellious Palermo’ (Valeria La Motta, ‘Saints in Prison: Francesco Baronio’s Calendar’ in Quaderni storici, 53.157(1) (2018), p. 119). Covering events until the last day of 1647, and ending with a call for peace and calm, Reina presents a day-by-day account of the ongoing revolution, the narrative interwoven with texts of decrees instituting the new taxes, edicts attempting to recover order, and letters between the Palermo government and the rebels.
‘Assai raro’ (Lozzi).
USTC 4020966. BM STC It. C17 II, p. 728. Melzi, Dizionario di opere anonime e pseudonime di scrittori Italiani II, p. 351. Lozzi II, 3320.In stock
