Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

Beware of republicanism 

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[MARCHETTI, Giovanni]. DELLE METAMORFORSI VEDUTE da Basilide l’eremita sul terminare del secolo xviii. Libri due. [Venice: Sebastiano Valle], 1799.  SOLD

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FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 118, [1] index, [1] blank; some light browning in places, small wormtrace to gutter of last few leaves, not affecting text, but largely clean; in contemporary carta rustica, remains of handwritten paper label on spine; spine worn, and some wear to extremities, and joints fragile; with contemporary ownership inscription of Cristoforo Camiletti on front paste-down.

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First, anonymous edition of this piece of social satire by the Empoli priest Giovanni Marchetti (1753-1829). Delle metamorfosi went through multiple editions in the same year, in Venice, Florence, Livorno and Rome. Adopting the persona of a hermit writing to his friend, Marchetti comments on the foolishness and self-deception of various groups in contemporary society, describing their ‘metamorphoses’ into (greater or lesser) clouds, snakes, swollen bladders, and orangutangs. Young professional men, for instance, believing themselves worthy of the degrees which they hold from ‘some corrupted university’ (‘qualche guasta università’, p.10) and enamoured with republican ideology, are buoyed up by air rather than substance. The second part of the book tracks their transformation back into human beings and subsequent efforts to rebuild a society purged of the contagious republicanism, patriotism and secularism that had brought about their bizarre metamorphosis.

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Marchetti devoted much of his life to resisting the encroachment of French Revolutionary beliefs and the Napoleonic government upon the rights of the Church. Born in Empoli, he was ordained in 1777 and received his degree in theology in Rome in 1778. The success of his early publications attacking Gallicanism and Jansenism led to his appointment to the editorial staff of the Giornale ecclesiastico di Roma in 1785. Pius VI also tasked Marchetti with publishing the testimonies of French clerics opposed to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (Le Testimonianze delle Chiese di Francia [...] (1791-94)). Through a combination of preaching and written polemic, he stirred up public opinion in Rome against the French as Napoleon’s army entered northern Italy, with treatises including Che importa ai preti? (1797). In 1798, he was imprisoned for inciting the people of the Trastevere to revolt; after a few months, he was expelled from Rome, only to be arrested again in 1799 for fomenting rebellion in Empoli. Marchetti continued to attack the legitimacy of the Civic Oath and the sale of ecclesiastical property, remaining in Rome by collaborating with Pro-Secretary of State Cardinal Pacca. He was arrested again in 1809 and imprisoned, this time on Elba, but was released shortly after. Upon the restoration of Pius VII, Marchetti was appointed Archbishop of Ancyra in partibus infidelium and, in 1822, apostolic vicar of the diocese of Rimini, all the while continuing to publish on theology and Church government. In 1826, he became secretary to the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars.

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Melzi II, p. 193; IT\ICCU\IEIE\002395; outside Italy, OCLC records copies at UCLA and the University of Connecticut. 

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[ref: 2484 ]