Le Caissier italien, ou L'Art de connoistre toutes les monnoies actuelles d'Italie

First edition. Quérard I, 271 lists only one edition: "Paris, Née de La Rochelle, 1789." Kress B.1163; Goldsmiths 13858. Not in Einaudi."

With loose printed title pages for each volume, dated 1789.

The first volume, with an engraved pictorial title after Meunier, contains 52 double-page or folding plates inserted into the pagination, without following its numbering logic.

The second volume has an engraved pictorial title by Zaveris after Meunier and includes 154 etched plates of coins.

Full mottled calf, spines with six raised bands, gilt fillets and double gilt panels, red morocco lettering-pieces, green morocco numbering-pieces, gilt rolls on the headcaps, double blind-ruled borders on covers, marbled endpapers, gilt fillets on edges, marbled edges, contemporary bindings.

Some restorations to the bindings.

Unique edition, very rare (the 1789 printing to which our two additional title leaves would correspond does not seem to be attested despite Quérard’s mention).

An excellent copy on strong vellum paper, large-margined, with the spines elegantly decorated with special gilt tools.

The author, a Lyon merchant, produced this impressive treatise on exchange rates and currencies circulating in Italy and Europe, lavishly illustrated with 154 unsigned copperplate engravings depicting hundreds of gold, silver, and copper coins from across the Italian peninsula (Rome, Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Gubbio, Naples and Sicily, Savoy and Piedmont, Tuscany, Milan, Mantua, Parma, Modena, Venice, Genoa, Lucca), France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Holland, and Ragusa. The final plate (numbered 173) shows Turkish currency. The text provides fascinating insights into the economic life of the various states and provinces, covering trade, local products, manufacturing, customs, banking, commercial courts, trade fairs, Brescian iron and steel mines, bills of exchange, brokerage, payment methods at Italian and Levantine fairs (Livorno), the Monte di Pietà and charitable banking institutions (Naples), the silk mills of Novi, the textile manufactories of Schio, Venetian glassworks, and much else.