Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

Short-lived constitution 

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[FRENCH OCCUPATION OF TUSCANY]. LA COSTITUZIONE DELLA REPUBBLICA FRANCESE DEL 1795. Aggiuntovi il calendario perpetuo. Edizione seconda senese. Siena: Nella Stamperia della Delegazione della Commissione del Governo Francese. Presso il Cittadino Pazzini Carli., II. Fiorile Anno 7 della R. Francese [1799]. £350

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8vo, pp. 96; engraved republican vignette on title-page with the motto ‘Liberta Eguaglianza’; occasional light spotting but largely clean and fresh; in contemporary interim light blue wrappers; title in ink on spine, dampstain to lower cover, and very light wear, but still an attractive copy.

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Second Siena printing (although we have been unable to trace any copies of a prior edition) of this Italian translation of the French Constitiution de l’an III, adopted in France on August 22, 1795 and in force until the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9), 1799.

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Napoleon’s troops occupied Tuscany, and thus Siena, between March and July 1799, before being driven out by a popular uprising (with the assistance of Austrian forces). The French knew the value of propaganda, however, and very quickly established government offices in Siena, who employed the press established by the Sienese bookseller Vincenzo Pazzini Carli (1707-1769), and continued by his sons after his death, to print not only copies of the French constitution as here, but also broadsides and other pieces of publicity. As was conventional, the Constitution printed here opens with the Déclaration des droits de l’homme, and closes with a perpetual Republican calendar. The identity of the translator is unknown, and there are is not attempt to adapt the constitution, or provide explanatory notes for local readers. 

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Cited by OCLC: 849052964 but giving no locations; not in LibraryHub; SBN (IT\ICCU\IEIE\009308) records five copies in Italy. 

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