BUONAMICI, Castruccio.

£750 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Commentaries of the Late War in Italy, Translated from The Original Latin. First edition in English, "a work written with considerable elegance, fidelity, and judgement" (Lowndes); originally published in Latin at"Ludgunum Batavorum" (actually ?Genoa), 1750-1. An account of the Italian Campaigns of the War of the Austrian Succesion by a participant. Buonamici joined the army of Charles Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies, and later Charles II of Spain, first as a cadet in the Bourbon cavalry regiment, and then with the King's Bodyguard. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Velletri, 1744, and wrote an acount of it in Latin for which the king awarded him a commission in the artillery, the position of treasurer of the Adriatic city of Barletta, and a substantial pension. This freed his time to write a history of the whole war which was published to even greater acclaim, being translated into French, German, Spanish and as here English. "That Buonamici had the antient historians, particularly Caesar's Commentaries, in view, is beyond all doubt; and that he has happily imitated these excellent patterns, is well known to those who have seen his much applauded performance. So lively, and at the same time natural a description has he given of the transactions of the late Italian war, that the reader fancies himself a spectator of the various battles sieges and marches..." (advertisement). A pretty copy in a contemporary binding.

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