Author: MARTINELLI (Vincenzio):
Title: Lettere Familiari e Critiche.
Description: Londra Pressa Giovanni Nourse..., 1758. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 201 x 123 mms., pp. [iv] v - xvi [xvii - xxxi Index, xxxii blank], 397 [380 blank], including half-title (soiled) cheaply recased in quarter calf, marbled boards, blocked in gilt on spine. Martinelli (1702 - 1785) came to England in 1748, and with his first publication, Istoria Critica della Vita Civile ( 1752), he "made his reputation as a man of letters, and was reprinted several times both in England and in Italy," as E. H. Thorne records. The Monthly Review for 1758 said of Lettere Familiari e Critiche "his compositions are pure, easy and flowing. The nature of his undertaking required, that he should sometimes write on familiar occasions, and his letters have therefore the defect unavoidable in such performances. They do not always inform us of any thing that it is much of our interest to know; and are more valuable for the mode of expression than for the thing expressed." Among the good and the great that he met was Charles Burney, whose daughter, Fanny, recorded in 1771, "He has a most uncommon flow of wit, and with it the utmost bitterness of satire and raillery of ill nature. His vanity and self-conceit exceed every person's I ever saw; and far from endeavouring to conceal this weakness, he glories in it, and thinks he but does himself justice in esteeming himself the head of whatever company he is in, and (openly) manifesting that he does so. He is not satisfied with priding himself that he speaks to the Great with sincerity, he piques himself upon treating them with rudeness." E. H. Thorne, "Vincenzo Martinelli in England: 1748 - 1744," Italian Studies (1956). Andrea Lupi, "Music and Poetry in Vincenzio Martinelli's 'Lettere Familiari e critiche'" in International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music (1998).

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