Florence

First edition of the author's first work; Aboal Amaro, Amerigo Vespucci, page 31. Leclerc, 263 (does not mention this edition). Sabin, 10704.

Contemporary limp cream paper boards, plain spine, original binding.

Spine worn with some loss, a marginal stain affecting two leaves at the beginning, otherwise a clean and attractive copy.

This essay, in which the author argued "with a certain force of reasoning" (Larousse) that Vespucci discovered America before Christopher Columbus, was awarded the prize of the Academy of Cortona in 1788. The Florentine scholar Stanislas Canovai (1740–1811) devoted his life to restoring the reputation of the famed navigator Amerigo...

First edition of the Marcello Virgilio translation in Latin, dedicated to Leo X. The princeps edition was based on an old translation by Petrus de Abano (ca. 1250-1316), and published in 1478 in Colle di Val d'Elsa. The original text was written in Greek around 60 AD.
Title page in red and black. 45 lines per page. Colophon : "Florentiæ per hæredes Philippi Iuntæ Florentini. Anno ab incarnatione Domini.1518. Idibus Octobris. Leone decimo Christiana[m] Rempub. gerente." Superb Filippo Giunta printer's mark on verso of last leaf. Bibliographical note in French opposite the title page.
Full modern limp vellum binding, all edges faintly bluish.
A lack of a small piece of paper...

A collection of two first editions of Italian translations, each devoted to a figure of eighteenth-century French secret diplomacy and published during their lifetimes: the Chevalier d'Éon and Prince Charles Edward Stuart, d. 1810 and 1788 respectively. 

This sammelband, combining two separately published works, in fact possesses a genuine thematic unity: cross-dressing.