Two volumes from the very rare first Italian edition of the Arabian Nights, based on Gallands liberal but highly influential French translation. Adapted to Parisian tastes, it had been first published in 12 volumes between 1704 and 1717. The present translation "was the main vehicle for the circulation of the Nights in Italian culture through the 18th- and 19th centuries and via Venice also influenced Modern Greek literature, which had access to the work only in the Italian translation. The history of the Italian reception of the Arabian Nights is characterised by the hegemony of Gallands work in Italian translation, which circulated first via Coletis edition and its various new editions, and later in the translation by Armando Dominicis in 1893" (Christian-Muslim relations, p. 859).
Volumes V and VI contain, respectively, Nights CLXVI-CCIII and CCV-CCCXXXIV.
The work is of great rarity: only two complete sets of the present work are traceable in libraries worldwide (Arezzo City Library and National Central Library, Florence) and only two other libraries have an incomplete set (volumes 11 and 12; Biblioteca Saveriana Conforti, Parma and Biblioteca comunale Alessandro Cialdi, Civitavecchia). Thus, only two other copies of the present fifth and sixth volumes are known!
The binding is slightly soiled, internally slightly soiled with small repairs to the title page. Otherwise in good condition. Burton VIII, 104; Chauvin IV, p. 46, no. 104A; OPAC SBN IT\ICCU\RMSE\061932 (4 copies, incl. 2 incomplete); cf. Christian-Muslim relations, A bibliographical history 37; this ed. not in WorldCat.