Five Illustrated Booklets Documenting the Fall and Death of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci

Five Illustrated Booklets Documenting the Fall of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci.

-Fugalli, Giovanni. The insurrection of Milan from 25 to 29 April 1945. Documentary. 16 photographic illustrations. [Milan, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, 16 pp.; forecorner bent. No North American holdings, OCLC. -The End of the Tyrants in Piazza Loreto. [Genoa, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, 14 pp.; illustrated wraps separated, loss at head, fair. not found in OCLC.

- Dongo! For the first time in the world; an impressive photographic documentation on the end of Mussolini and the hierarchs in Dongo. [Milan, Italy]: [New editions A.], [1951]. 8vo, 32 pp.; profuse b / w illus., reproducing photographs of the assassination, etc. Color illus. stapled wrappers, worn, splitting at spine, fair. Two copies.

- “The Retreat of Death”: Claretta Petacci. [Bologna, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, [15] pp.; toned, chipped edges, in illus. wrapper, soiled. This impression not in OCLC, a similar booklet, printed in Rome, held by Duke. OCLC finds one North American holding, NYPL.

-Murra, G., and C. Persia. The truth about the twelve days of Mussolina in Ponza. Bologna, Italy: Np, nd, ca. 1945. 8vo, 16 pp.; good, closed tear wrapper front fore-edge. 2 OCLC holdings: Duke, NYPL.

$150

Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini…

(Propaganda - Fascist) Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini… [Milan?], nd., ca. 1943. Poster printed in black and red, approx. 22-¾ x 19-¼ in.; toned, creases from vertical and horizontal folds, splitting at center; edges a bit worn, some foxing verso.

Poster warning inhabitants in German-controlled northern Italy of the dangers of the advancing Allied forces. “Reds,” “Jews,” and “hyenas of the air,” are coming for Italian women and children, converting them to their side with sweets and cigarettes.

OCLC locates one holding, at the Hoover.

$225

Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici.

(Anarchism) Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici … Broadside, 13 x 18-½ in.; creased, bottom edge roughly trimmed, typographic irregularities. Np, nd [1912-1913].

Anarchist broadside protesting the quasi-universal male suffrage granted to Italian men over 30 by the “moderately progressive” government of Giovanni Giolitti in 1912. The enfranchisement extended the vote to the very poor and illiterate, with the dramatic impact of trebling the electorate (from 3 to almost 9 million voters) in advance of the 1913 elections. The far left parties (Estrema) did not support the franchise; here anarchists protest it as a bourgeois “swindle,” keeping intact economic tyranny and solidifying the power of the political elite.

Italian anarchists were influenced by Mikhail Bakunin, who wrote “the whole system of representative government is an immense fraud resting on this fiction [of political liberty in the popular vote] ... Political power means domination.” (In fact, the “democratized” 1913 elections resulted in no representative gains by the revolutionary or working class parties of Estrema.)

$175

Collection of Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Italian Governance and Elections

[Partito Liberale Italiano; Democrazia Cristiana; et al.]. Collection of Italian Political Pamphlets, Leaflets, and Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Governance, Elections, and the First Italian Republic, ca. 1945-1946.

Comprised of: three mimeographed documents issued in December 1945 in reference to a proclamation by Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi shortly after his election, one the proclamation, and two from members of the Allied Commission; three Democrazia Cristiana leaflets, ca. 1945, one printed the day of Mussolini’s death; eight issues (with five duplicates) of the Quadrini del Partito Liberale, by Luigi Einaudi, Paolo Serini, Benedetto Croce, and Marcello Soleri, and others, some reissued by the PLI Sezione Piemontese, with two PLI leaflets, one printing the lyrics to the patriotic anthem “Arise Piedmonte.” Turin. Most 1945, a few 1943-1948.

Quadrini del Partito Liberale not found in OCLC.

$350

Group of Italian Resistance Bulletins and Handbills

(Clandestine Press) (Brigate Garibaldi) Group of Italian Resistance Bulletins and Handbills, and a Photograph, ca. 1943-45. [Rome, Turin, et al.]. Totaling thirteen items: two small handbills, printed recto and verso, the first “Ordine del Giorno N. 8 del Comando del distaccamenti e delle Brigate d’Assalto Garibaldi,” and the second, “Bollettino No. 12 Guerra Partigiana,” attributed to Il Comando delle Brigate d’Assalto Garibaldi del Piemonte, both ca. 1944, and a press? photograph of a fascist torture cell. Handbills lightly worn, good; photo center-creased and faded, with typed caption pasted recto, manuscript caption verso, fair. Together with ten mimeographed bulletins from wartime clandestine presses, most single sheet printed recto only, one example [4] pp., another [2] pp., stapled, all toned and fragile, most with creases from prior folds and edge wear, a few with small closed tears and chipping, two with manuscript annotations.

Texts discuss resistance operations in Turin and Northern Italy, the Brigate Garibaldi, partisan and labor actions, the activities of the Corpo volontari della libertà, the French resistance, and the Soviet Union/Eastern front. Some bulletins dated and attributed, including “Il Grido di Spartaco,” a clandestine Communist newspaper; “La Federazione Comunista Torinese”; “Il Costituendo Partito P.R.I.”; and “Il Comitato di Agitazione del Piemonte.”

OCLC locates no specific holdings of any of these items, though relevant archives exist at the Hoover and Library of Congress.

SOLD

(Clandestine Press) (Women) Italian Women’s Resistance Leaflets and Serials

(Clandestine Press) (Women) Gruppi di difesa della donna e per l’assistenza ai combattenti della libertà. Three handbills and a clandestine issue of Noi Donne. [Turin?]: n.d., ca. 1944-45. Sizes vary, from 8-¾ x 6-½ in. to 4 x 9-⅛ in.; all sl. toned, one with chipped edges. Together with Le Donne e la resistenza: Un documentario Noi Donne da conservare, per non dimenticare. Rome: Noi Donne, n.d. [ca. 1946]. Large 4to, [48] pp.; profuse b/w illus. from photographs, newsprint toned with small dampstain affecting most pages, pages numbered 16-61; stapled illus. color wrapper with red star pasted to front cover, worn at corners and spine.

Rare examples from the clandestine Piedmont presses of the Italian women’s resistance movement, Gruppi di defesa della Donna (Gddd). Led in Turin by Ada Gobetti, Gddd’s partisans risked their lives to produce antifascist and feminist literature in the German-occupied Italian Social Republic. They collaborated with and supported the Corpo volontari della libertà (CVL) through mutual aid activities including propaganda, industrial sabotage, and first aid. Some joined the CVL’s armed resistance, in the Brigate Garibaldi.

The present group includes calls to action against “nazi-fascisti” and a previously unidentified? example of the women’s movement serial, Noi Donne, which originated in Paris in 1937 in the antifascist exile community, and was reborn during the Italian resistance as a clandestine paper allied with the Gddd. Regional editions varied widely; most groups did not have access to presses so they brought mimeograph machines to kitchens and women’s shops, and printed during the night; this example probably issued by the Turin section, edited by Dina Ermini

After liberation, the Noi Donne editorial office was located in Rome under the auspices of the feminist organization Unione Donne Italiane. In the present group is the large format Noi Donne supplement Le Donne e la resistenza. The special edition tells the story of Italian women’s participation in the resistance through texts and photographs solicited by the editors from the partigiane themselves.

Gddd documents and early issues of Noi Donne are virtually unknown outside of Italian archives. Scholars have noted that individual print runs might range from 500 to 10,000 copies, and that possession of an issue (let alone the dangers of printing) could lead to deportation, torture, or death.

Three Gddd flyers are included in the Library of Congress archive of wartime European underground publications. We are unable to confirm any physical copies of Noi Donne from the 1940s in North American institutional collections.

See Marisa Rodano. “Introduction.” Noi Donne, 1944-1945: Ristampa. Rome: Editrice Cooperative Libera Stamp, 1978.

SOLD

Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita

(Women) (Sport) Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita. Rome, 1912. Concertina booklet, closed: 5-½ x 3-⅜ in., illus. with ten portraits of the fighters, from England, Europe, Russia, and the US; some usual wear, esp. at folds.

Promotional booklet for a women’s wrestling tournament held an evening variety show at a well-known Roman theater. Photographs of each contestant are reproduced with captions identifying their last name, nationality, and weight. The earnest, athletic presentation of the “national champions” in this booklet was unusual for a sport regarded largely as entertainment. This style of presentation may have been related to contemporary interest in the international competition of the V Summer Olympiad, which opened the same month

We could not locate any other record of the tournament or the participants. Women’s wrestling was not included as an Olympic sport until 2004.

$900

Rosalba Carriera per l’inaugurazione delle sale degli autoritratti nella R. Galleria degli Uffizi

Malamani, Vittorio. Rosalba Carriera per l’inaugurazione delle sale degli autoritratti nella R. Galleria degli Uffizi. Rome: Ministero dell’Istruzione Pubblica, 1899. First separate edition. Large 4to, 125 pp.; with illus. facsimile reproductions of Carriera’s letters and 9 plates, most reproducing engravings made after her paintings and pastels, some in color, bound together at rear, contents very good with occasional small marks, pages untrimmed; orig. paper wrpprs. present but separated with significant chipping at edges of both covers, spine lacking. Manuscript presentation inscription on half-title from the author to Riccardo Artoni(?). Together with 3 b/w prints of Carriera’s L’Innocenza (1705; a.k.a. La Giovinetta della Colomba) by Ed. Alinari. Carriera submitted L’Innocenza to the Accademia di San Luca and on the basis of its quality was the first woman admitted to Rome’s all-male academy.

This extract is seemingly the first major monographic work devoted to Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757), and the missing “first edition” to Vittorio Malamani’s later Carriera catalogue (Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d’Arti Grafiche Editore, 1910). Originally published in Le Gallerie nazionali italiane: notizie e documenti 4 (1896-1897), pp. 27-149, it is the first application of modern art historical methods to Carriera’s artwork and career.

On the occasion of the opening of the Uffizi’s new self-portrait gallery, Malamani set out to correct a problem that Carriera’s biographers still encounter: little is known of her early training and her established biography is dependent on both short sentimental elegies published decades after her death and transcriptions of her journals and letters heavily edited by friends, family, and prejudiced translators.

Rare. The 1899 first edition listed by OCLC at only two European institutions, all other holdings are the second edition.

$550

Album of late 19th Century Albumen or Gelatin-Silver Prints of Gubbio and Perugia

Album of late 19th Century Albumen or Gelatin-Silver Prints of Gubbio and Perugia. [Italy, ca. 1880].

Oblong 4to (8 3/8 x 12 in.) containing [12] heavy card leaves with 22 mounted prints: 13 of which approx. 7 x 9 in. and larger, the rest approx. 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.; professional views of artistic or architectural monuments (10), some signed in negative by [Fratelli] Alinari and [James] Anderson, together with amateur views (12); leaves sl. warped through center, a few prints a bit toned or faded but retaining contrast and detail, cloth with gilt title “Roma,” boards worn and corners bumped, printed binder’s ticket: “Encuadernacion, R. Dietsch, Moneda 877.”

Curious photo album, titled “Roma” and bound in Santiago de Chile, but containing images almost entirely from Perugia (with the exception of a view of the Pantheon and a composite image of classical sculpture). The binder, Ricardo Dietsch, was known as “La Alemena,” and was active in Santiago de Chile from at least 1894 until the mid-1920s.

The amateur photography is particularly striking, with many of the major sites of Gubbio, Italy visible in unexpected street scenes. These include city residents participating in the spring folk festival Corsa [or Festa] de Ceri, in which teams race through the city carrying heavy wooden statues of local patron saints. Still others depict busy street scenes; an arresting image of women kneeling in the snow; and soldiers and peasants as they lounge on the walls of the city’s famous Roman theater or walk past its Romanesque palazzos and churches.

$275