La vita militare, politica, e privata della nobile zitella la Signora D'Eon [ensemble] Istoria di Sua Altezza Reale il Principe Carlo Odoardo Stuart di Galles

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.

The first translation is complete with the rare frontispiece portrait of the Chevalier in women's dress, the identity he would assume in the second half of his life. "She" proudly wears the cross of the Order of Saint-Louis on her chest, awarded in 1763. 

The second translation was made from an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century bestseller with a colourful publishing history: Ascanius, or the Young Adventurer; a true history, written by Ralph Griffiths. This biography of Charles Edward Stuart had, prior to its publication in 1746, existed as a manuscript circulating clandestinely at the court of Versailles. In Griffiths's version, unlike in the present Italian translation, the "Young Pretender" never appears under his real name. Both works nonetheless recount the episode in which "Bonnie Prince Charlie" disguised himself as an Irish maidservant during his flight to the Isle of Skye, following the defeat of his armies at the Battle of Culloden.

Temporary binding in half vellum, manuscript title in brown ink on the spine with an early partially missing library label at the head, fore-edge untrimmed. 

Title rubbed, discreet worming and minor foxing to the spine.

Scattered foxing and marginal dampstaining to the first text. Second text in fine condition.

"The Translator to the Women of this Age.

To you, the dearer half of humanity, I dedicate this gentle labour, in the hope that it may add to your lustre and encourage you to contribute ever more to your glory through illustrious deeds. The distinction which prevails in civil society between women and men, with respect to the functions of mind and body, is commonly excused, where women are concerned, by the alleged natural weakness of their too delicate and gentle constitution. But is this excuse altogether valid? If we look to labouring families, we shall find little, if any, difference in the daily toil of the sexes. Indeed, travellers returning from the remotest regions of America, and even from islands still largely unknown, report that men exercise so strange a tyranny over their wives as to subject them to the most arduous tasks of rural life, while they themselves remain idle, concerned with nothing beyond making themselves feared. As for women of intellect, history furnishes so many illustrious examples in every field that a mere inventory would prove too lengthy.

How then, Ladies, can one excuse such a waste of strength and talent to the detriment of society, a waste that flows from your habitual neglect? I am well aware that the examples of a Semiramis or a Thalestris are dismissed as fabulous, and that proof of exceptional ability in the sciences and arts among certain modern women is discredited by the suspicion that some secret confidant generously supplied them with their achievements. But what is to be said of a contemporary example, attended by such circumstances as to place it beyond all doubt, and whose subject, the celebrated French lady, the Signora d'Éon, cannot justly be suspected of imposture? She excelled in literature, in politics, and in arms; she served her country in the company of Minerva and Mars; and she was obliged to exert unceasing effort to conceal her sex for nine-and-forty years, a truly remarkable feat. Future ages may perhaps doubt it, which is why no number of tributes and testimonies to so singular a fact can be deemed excessive, so that posterity may be assured of not bestowing its admiration upon a chimera.

You, therefore, women of spirit in this age, take your inspiration from the example of a contemporary heroine, and beware of betraying your deeper nature by believing yourselves born solely to pursue the frivolities of passing fashions or to make the human heart the sole object of your desires. The young d'Éon is the model I set before you. And having offered you, at the opening of this book, a portrait of her outward person, I shall presently furnish you with another, moral and civic, as it were, through the illustrious titles she has earned, which form a kind of compendium of her history."

Preface of La Vita de la Signora D'Éon, pp. 3-6.

(our own translation)