Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

All one needs to know, nothing one doesn’t 

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[ANTOINE, Giacomo?]. ELEMENTI DI GEOGRAFIA ad uso della gioventu' Giusta le piu recenti Osservazioni de' migliori Geografi, e le attuali Divisioni Politiche. Prima Edizione. In Bergamo: Presso Vincenzo Antoine, 1802. SOLD

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FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [viii], 158, woodcut vignette on title and final page of prelims; some inkspotting, browning, and staining (from use), but largely clean; in the original printed blue wrappers; some wear but still an attractive copy.

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First edition (as unusually emphasised on the title) of this introduction to geography, possibly the work of the printer Giacomo Antoine, son of Vincenzo under whose imprint it appeared.

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The book is divided into three parts, with the first describing the basic division of the Earth into continents and each continent’s shape, borders, mountains, seas and islands, and principal cities. The remaining two parts deal in more detail with the individual countries on each continent. In each case, starting with Great Britain, the book describes the country’s location, its political and geographic divisions and their populations, its islands where applicable, its foreign possessions (a rather longer list in the case of Britain than with some other entries), its principal mountains and rivers, its system of government, the main religion (it may come as a surprise to adherents of the Church of England that they are ‘L’episcopale deltta anche Anglicana, o Calvinista’), natural resources, and populations. 

This is not a book for the student who wants to go into depth, but more a little factual reference. The publisher’s note at the start mentions that there are a number of very detailed geographical studies... ‘But amidst all these voluminous and learned works, the public desired a simple work that would be useful and accessible to studious youth. Such productions are ordinarily either insufficient because they are too brief, or less accurate or interesting because of a lack of new discoveries, or of recent changes brought about by military and political events. We have therefore made sure that this edition, while satisfying the desire of the public, will be free of both these defects.’

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A second edition appeared two years later; both are rare. 

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See Barbara Cattaneo, “Editoria a Bergamo tra ‘700 e ‘800. Il caso degli Antoine”, Atti dell’Ateneo di Science, Lettere ed Arti di Bergamo vol. 60, 1999, 223-234; this edition not in OCLC, which records a single copy of the 1804 second edition at NYPL; SBN (IT\ICCU\UBOE\047331) records an incomplete copy at the University of Bologna, and copies at the Braidense and the University of Naples. 

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