SONETTI FILOSOFICI DI METAFISICA.

4to, pp. 111, [1] blank; repaired tear to bottom corner of b4, not affecting text; aside from some occasional spotting, clean and crisp throughout; rear free endpaper trimmed in half; in contemporary half sheep, green boards, spine in compartments with gilt-lettered label; some wear to extremities and boards, and small wormhole to upper cover, but still an attractive copy. Only edition, rare, of this set of sonnets on philosophical themes by the Veronese priest and poet Giosafatte Cipriani (c. 1769-1840). Written with the aim of sweetening the otherwise rather bitter pill of metaphysics for young readers who might otherwise be put off the study of philosophy by its usual austere and rigid form, while also offering an antidote to the 'poisonous pestilential systems' that had dishonoured the preceding century, the book is divided into three sections: psychology, natural theology, and ethics, with exactly one hundred sonnets in all. With subjects ranging from the immortality of the soul to the existence of natural law, Cipriani's poems address and attempt, insofar as is possible in fourteen lines, to refute the arguments of Locke, Voltaire, Spinoza, and Bayle, while summarising Aquinas' views on human freedom, attacking Mirabaud and Newton, and addressing Rousseau's views on the social contract and on education. Little is known of Cipriani beyond his publications, which include three novels published in Verona in the 1810s, an epic poem on the life of Constantine, and a study of Marian devotion in Verona. The present copy does not have the table of contents present at the end of the British Library copy, which also has an additional two-page 'avviso dell' autore', printed at least a decade subsequently; there is nothing to suggest these were ever present. OCLC records copies at Yale and the BL only (both pp. 116, [2]).