COOK (JAMES)
GIANETTI (MICHELANGIOLO) Elogy of Captain James Cook Composed and Publickly Recited before the Royal Academy of Florence... Translated into English by a Member of the Royal Academy of Florence, parallel text in English and Italian, each leaf within double-line border, both titles with engraved vignette of the Royal Society Cook Medal, original stiff marbled wrappers, some losses to spine [Beddie 1957; Forbes 99; Holmes 51; Kroepelien 486; Sabin 27267], 4to (265 x 205mm.), Florence, Gaetano Cambiagi, Printer to His Royal Highness, 1785
Footnotes:
First edition of a scarce florid eulogy, with dual text in English and Italian, of 'that intrepid Englishman James Cook..., a single drop of whose blood, was worth more than all the blood of the Barbarians...'. Kippis, Cook's first biographer, had not seen a copy, but notes that 'greater honour is paid to [Cook's] name abroad than at home. A remarkable proof of it occurs, in the eulogy of our navigator, by Michael Angelo Gianetti, which was read at the Royal Florentine Academy, on the ninth of June, 1785, and published at Florence, in the same year'.

Provenance: Borgo San Lorenzo, Capuchin Convent, oval stamp on English title, and inside upper cover; private UK collection.
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