Fatti relativi a mesmerismo e cure mesmeriche... del dottor Angelo Cogevina... e...Francesco Orioli. Corfu: dalla tipografia del Governo,

ON MESMERISM

Manuscript on paper. 4to (255 x 180mm). 467pp [2]ff. 24 lines to the page plus catchwords, written in a neat scribal hand throughout, mostly in brown ink but with some passages in red and blue. 19th-century Italian green morocco-backed marbled boards.

A 19th-century manuscript copy of a very rare work published in print in Corfu in 1842 (printed text 349pp.) on the use of mesmerism and its healing effects, complete with case studies. Painstakingly written out in an extremely neat hand and in several shades of ink, it is tempting to place this work in the long tradition of writing down and copying out occult, alchemical and in this case proto-scientific texts in manuscript. The efficacy, and potency of these texts’ content was said to be conveyed through the act of writing them down.

Angelo Cogevina was director of the civil hospital in Corfu, which also housed the asylum and orphanage; Francesco Orioli (1783-1856) was an Italian politician and archaeologist, exiled from Italy for a number of years during Austrian occupation. In 1842 he was professor at the Ionian College before taking up the chair of archaeology in Rome in 1846.

OCLC records copies of the printed book in the British Library in the UK; NLM, Princeton, Bakken Museum & the Wood Library of Anesthesiology in the USA, with one copy in France and several in Italy.

Provenance: booklabel of Antonio Biancheri, surgeon.

Stock Code: 215381