Title: Del Collegio petroniano delle balie latine E del solenne suo aprimento in quest' Anno 1719. In Siena per dote, e istituto del cardinale Riccardo Petroni A benefizio di tutta la Nazione Italiana Ad effetto di rendere naturale la Lingua Latina [...]
Description: <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Full title:</b> Del Collegio petroniano delle balie latine E del solenne suo aprimento in quest' Anno 1719. In Siena per dote, e istituto del cardinale Riccardo Petroni A benefizio di tutta la Nazione Italiana Ad effetto di rendere naturale la Lingua Latina quale fu presso i Romani Col vero metodo degli studj per la Gioventù dell'uno e dell'altro sesso, nel medesimo Collegio stabiliti. Del Dottor Salvatore Tonci Primo Medico di detto Collegio. Seconda Impressione Nella quale si aggiungono i Raconti delle solenni Feste, che si fecero ne' due giorni seguenti del Carnevale, e particolarmente l'Accademia delle Gentildonne Sanesi colla nuova ammissione delle più rinomate Dame d'Italia all' Accademia stessa.
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"> 4to. f. [1] (blank), pp. [8] (two last blank), ff. [2] (plates), pp. 213, [1], ff. [2] (blank). Signatures: A-H⁴ I² ( -I2 blank? (Not present)). Contemporary vellum. Engraved frontispiece of two Latin-teaching wet nurses with two infant children, and folding plate of the facade of the College, ‘architettura di Baldasar da Siena.’ Includes initials, head- and tailpieces.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">Second, enlarged edition (the same year as the first) of an elaborate hoax by the playwright, novelist, and epistolary forger Gigli (1660-1722), describing an academy or boarding school at Siena, where suckling babies were supposedly taught classical Latin as a native language, toward the restoration of its former glory, and the eventual replacement of the vernacular throughout Italy. In that respect, it was a satire on the Jesuits' ambitions in their Ratio studiorum, especially as adopted at Siena's College Tolomei. The wholly imaginary "Collegio Petroniano" was supposedly established by a Sienese benefactor, Nicodemus Forteguerri, in 1695, in accordance with (equally imaginary) precepts left by Cardinal Riccardo Petroni in his will of 1313, which Gigli claimed to be quoting. He gave "detailed footnotes referring to remote manuscripts, fascicles, and documents from various Italian libraries and archives" (see C. Frenquellucci, “Forged Letters and Literary Hoaxes: Satire and the Epistolary Novel in Girolamo Gigli’s Il Gazattino and Il Collegio Petroniana delle Balie Latine,” in: Italica 88 (2011), pp. 163-177). As such, it certainly qualifies (as Frenquellucci observes) as a "work of fiction," and its use of clever rhetorical enhancement (solemn "historical" evidence presented in a "strictly academic voice," and even "third-person references to [Gigli] himself and his own plays," both trademarks of later literary forgery, renders it one of the relatively few examples of that genre from 18th-century Italy, and explains its widespread reception a genuine, "convincing to the point that visitors from other parts of Italy and from abroad began travelling to Siena intending to visit a fictional place."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">See Frenquellucci for an up-to-date list of Gigli studies. </span><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">See also B. Gamba, Serie dei testi di lingua e di altre opere importanti nella italiana letteratura, scritte dal secolo XIV al XIX. 4. ed., riveduta, emendata e notabilmente accresciuta. Venice, 1839, 2260.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/permalink/01JHU_INST/1lu78g9/alma991040481649707861" rel="nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.</a></span></span></p>