GUASCO, Ottaviano di (1712-1781). De l'usage des statues chez les Anciens. Essai historique. Bruxelles, chez J. L. de Boubers, 1768. 4° (257x198 mm). XXIII, 504 8recte 505) pp. Title printed in black and red with engraved vignette, armorial headpiece, numismatic vignette and 14 plates engraved by J. L. de Boubers. Contemporary vellum gilt; armorial center piece within floral frieze border and fleurons in the corners, spine decorated with fleurons, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Lower corners minimally scuffed; some toning.

Sole edition. A Piedmontese scholar and historian and member of several learned societies, Guasco was Montesquieu's friend and translator into Italian. He is best known for having published the present work, in which he approached the study of ancient sculpture from an intellectual perspective quite opposite to that followed by Winckelmann in Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (Dresden 1764). Instead of developing an approach that privileges the historical, artistic and aesthetic dimensions, he prefers to investigate the 'philosophical' meanings behind the statues. Guasco is convinced that a sculpture is first and foremost the expression of a religious, moral or political need. This conception of statuary is influenced by the decisive encounter he has from 1738 onwards with Montesquieu and his most famous work, the Esprit des lois. The oblivion that fell upon Guasco's work immediately after its release was mainly due to the hegemonic role exercised by art history in recent centuries, which, having made objects that were born without a necessary aesthetic character its own, subjected them almost exclusively to formal and iconological investigations, neglecting to investigate their real cultural and social function. (cf. Stefano Ferrari, La scultura antica tra Montesquieu e Winckelmann: il De lusage des statues chez les anciens di Ottaviano Guasco. in Anabases, 21/2015, 11-24).

Copy of Vittorio Amadeo III (1726-1796), at the time Duke of Savoy and from 1773 King of Sardinia. The printed dedication is headed by the duke's coat of arms and the binding is decorated with the Savoy coat of arms embossed in gold on the covers.

Vittorio Amadeo was educated in the spirit of the enlightenment. This included reading the French and Italian classics and contemporary authors such as Voltaire and notably Montesquieu, whose Considerations sur le causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence had a formative influence on his view of the history of antiquity. Although conservative in spirit, he carried out numerous administrative reforms in his reign. In the field of arts and sciences, he established the first astronomical observatory in Turin, re-established the schools of painting and sculpture (1778) and endowed the academy of sciences in Turin. At the end of his life, he was politically isolated and left behind a kingdom that was in economic ruin, whose coffers were completely empty, which was deprived of two important provinces - Savoy and Nice - and devastated by revolutionary movements.

Provenance: Vittorio Amadeo III, Duke of Savoy (see comment); Biblioteca Piervissana, stamp on title and last leaf; Princess Marie-Gabrielle of Savoy, label with the crowned cipher M.G. on spine.

PRICE: CHF 3 500