Del cantico di Mose audite Caeli quae loquor & c. Nel Deuteronomio al capo 32. Parafrasi lirica.

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Creator

Pier Niccolo Capocci [translator].

Title

Del cantico di Mose audite Caeli quae loquor & c. Nel Deuteronomio al capo 32. Parafrasi lirica.

Coverage

Rome

Publisher

nella stamperia Salomoni

Date

1782

Description

Provenance: Henry Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York.

The art and culture of early-modern Italy, especially Rome, are interests that inform all of my collections. A largely forgotten aspect of eighteenth-century Rome is that the papacy hosted the “court in exile” of England’s would-be Stuart monarchs, who attracted a core group of Jacobite loyalists as well as curious Grand Tourists. This Italian translation of the “Song of Moses” was dedicated to Henry Stuart, a son of the “Old Pretender” known as the Cardinal Duke of York. This copy was bound by a contemporary Roman craftsman and features the royal Stuart arms as borne by him: the small crescent moon at center discreetly marks his status as a younger son, while the elaborate cardinal’s hat surrounding the armorial trumpets his rank as a prince of the Church. Upon the death of his elder brother in 1788, the Cardinal Duke styled himself Henry IX, but by this point the “Stuart claims” were little more than an affectation. A recurring theme in the history of Rome: sic transit gloria mundi.

Source

Robert Loper