[APROSIO, Angelico]. La Visiera Alzata Hecatoste di Scrittori, che vaghi d'andare in Maschera fuor del tempo di Carnovale sono scoperti da Gio: Pietro Giacomo Villani.
135, [1] pp. 12mo, cont. vellum over boards (some foxing). Parma: Heirs of Vigna, 1689. First edition of the fundamental work for the identification of 17th-century pseudonyms, and an important source for all later bibliographers. "This was the first collection [of pseudonyms] in a vernacular language and the first to be limited to the authors of a single country...it is rare...A second bibliography contained in La Visiera alzata (pp. 5-22) lists the books dedicated to Magliabecchi and the eulogies written to honor him. It is perhaps unique in its species... "It is not surprising that Angelico Aprosio, a man who chose a different disguise for his own name in almost every one of his dozen books became the first Italian bibliographer of pseudonyms."Taylor & Mosher, The Bibliographical History of Anonyma and Pseudonyma, pp. 114-15. This book was dedicated to Antonio Magliabechi, the famous polyglot librarian to the Grand-Duke Cosimo II of Tuscany and contains a presentation inscription from Magliabechi to its next owner, Prosper Mandosi. Mandosi was a "great Italian bibliographer" (Taylor, p. 9) who compiled the Bibliotheca Romana (1682-92), the first Italian bibliography of anonymous literature. Fine copy preserved in a red morocco-backed box. Modern bookplate of Renato Rabaiotti. Besterman, The Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography, p. 51.
$US1950
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