Rare Italian version of Madame du Boccage’s verse epitome of ‘Paradise Lost.’

[Milton] / Madame du Boccage / Gasparo Gozzi, trans. Il paradiso terrestre poema francese della signora Di Boccage ad imitazione del Milton. In Venezia: presso Giambatista Novelli, 1757. 8vo [20.4 x 13.6 cm], [16] pp., 111 pp., [1] p. blank verso, with etched title-page vignette, woodcut head-pieces, initials, and tail-pieces. Half bound in green and pink paper over pasteboards, gold-stamped title on spine. Rubbing and chipping to spine and board edges, toning to edges of covers. Uncut, endpapers toned, stain to upper blank margin of half title showing faintly on next few leaves, minor edge staining and edge wear. 
 
 
Rare (1 U.S. copy: Harvard) first edition of Gasparo Gozzi’s (1713-86) Italian translation of Madame Anne-Marie Fiquet du Boccage’s (1710-1802) mini-epic poem written in imitation of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Her first work, Paradis Terrestre, poeme imité de Milton appeared in 1748 and brought her immediate fame. The poem, a loose epitome of Milton’s masterpiece, consists of some 2000 lines in 6 chants (as compared to Milton’s more than 10,000 lines over 12 books). 
 
The Venetian dramatist-critic Gozzi published his translation in 1757. He retained Boccage’s dedication to the Academicians of Rouen and to it added his own verse dedication to the noblewoman Margherita Condulmer Cornaro, in which he notes that Boccage was sojourning in Venice at the time.
 
“Marie Anne Le Page was born at Rouen, the 22nd October, 1710, and educated at the convent de l’Assumption, at Paris. She displayed at an early age a talent for poetry; but her first essays were suppressed, or inserted in the Mercure under a feigned name. In her 16th year she was married to Pierre Joseph Ficquet du Boccage, who died in 1768. Having gained several academical prizes, Madame du Boccage, in 1748, published, in imitation of Milton, her Paradis terrestre, and, in 1749, Le Temple de la Gloire, imitated from Pope. These were followed by Les Amazons, a tragedy, which was performed to great applause. By this time her reputation had spread not only through France, but even in foreign countries, where the writings were translated; she also enjoyed the friendship of many illustrious characters, among whom were Condamine, Fontenelle, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Mably, Barthelemy, Franklin, and Count Alfieri. In 1756 she published a poem, dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV, entitled La Colombiade, ou la Foi portée au nouveau Monde, which was translated into several languages … Madame du Boccage died 8 August, 1802, in her 92nd year” (Chef-d’oeuvre of French Literature, p. 343).
 
 
OCLC and KVK locate 1 U.S. copy of this 1757 Il paradiso terrestre (Harvard). There exists an alternate issue of this edition, which has the title-page vignette printed in red (e.g., the Biblioteca Casanatense copy). A second edition appeared in 1758 (no U.S. copies). 
 
*IT\ICCU\VIAE\035198; Grace Gill-Mark, Une femme de lettres au XVIIIe siècle, Anne-Marie Du Boccage; Domenico Proietti, “Gozzi, Gasparo,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 58 (2002); Giovanni Battista Magrini, I tempi, la vita e gli scritti di Carlo Gozzi, aggiuntevi le sue annotazioni inedite alla Marfisa bizzarra; Anon., Chef-d’oeuvre of French Literature Consisting of Interesting Extracts from the Classic French Writers, in Prose and Verse, with Biographical and Critical Remarks on the Authors and Their Works (1821).