A rare Venetian printing of the Malleus Maleficarum, an edition that reignited interest in the work and the witch trials of Europe, this copy consulted and inscribed by Casanova. Octavo. Bound in contemporary limp vellum, manuscript titles to spine. Occasional early annotations throughout the text. A very good copy indeed, wanting the flyleaf but textually complete, including the publisher’s device to the final leaf. Paper label with shelfmark to the spine, shelfmarks to title page also.
 
One of the most infamous books published in early modern Europe, inscribed by Casanova.
Casanova arrived in Rome in 1770, planning to spend a quiet six months there, “confining my activities to learning to know the city and making such acquaintances as doing that should bring me”.
 
One of the earliest acquaintances he made was Antonio Publicola, the Prince of Santa Croce, who helped Casanova gain access to Rome’s libraries:
“As soon as, two or three weeks after I arrived, he heard me complain of the difficulties a man of letters encountered when he went to work in the Roman libraries, the Minerva, for example, or still more the Vatican, he offered to introduce me to the Superior of the professed house at Il Gesù and at Sant’Iganzio”.
 
This introduction granted Casanova use of the library of the Compagnia Del Gesú at the Collegio Romano, and seems to have provided him with unfettered access to the collection, even allowing him to remove volumes for his own private consultation:
“One of the librarians presented me once and for all to all the assistants, and from then on I found I could not only go to the library on any day and at any hour but could also take home whatever books I needed, only writing the title of the book on a sheet of paper which I left on the table at which I was writing. I was brought candles when it appeared that I did not have light enough, and the courtesy I was shown even extended to my being given the key to a small door by which I could enter the library at all hours, very often without being seen.”
 
PROVENANCE: Compagnia del Gesú, the library of the Company Of Jesuits at the Collegio Romano, consulted there and inscribed by; Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), adventurer and libertine, his inscription to to front pastedown; sold at Christies London with other books from the Compagnia del Gesú, 15th November 2013 (lot 350).