A Few Flowers from the Roman Campagna; Offered to the Immaculate Conception Charity
London: John Philp, 1861. First edition. Small thin quarto (8 3/8 inches tall), original blind-stamped purple cloth, gilt front board, pale yellow endpapers, all edges gilt. Blindstamp, bindery ticket, mild toning and blemishes to boards, very gentle wear to ends and corners, occasional foxing to interiors. A nearly-fine copy. Item #1774
"HE WHO HEARS NOT THE FOOTSTEPS OF GREAT SPIRITS, EVER ACCOMPANYING HIM IN ROME, IS DEAF INDEED"
First edition of these musings by Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman — collecting poetry and prose written in Italy by the Ultramontanist prelate. Printed at the Chiswick Press and bound in gilt-edged purple cloth with the Cardinal's arms embossed on the front flyleaf. A lovely volume.
Dr. Nicholas Wiseman was the Rector of the English College in Rome and the last Apostolic Vicar of the London District. After the return of the Hierarchy of England and Wales in 1850, Wiseman was made the first Archbishop of Westminster and created a Cardinal. Composed during 1859 and 1860 — while Wiseman was invalided in Italy by an extended illness — these poems and meditations mirror the Cardinal's sometimes flamboyant Ultramontanism, which had often been at odds with the old English Catholics. "If Pugin imagined Catholicism resurgent in the hallowed associations of Gothic ornamental ritual, Wiseman conceived it resurgent in a great prelate" (Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church).
Contents: Preface. I. Tusculum. Written in "Fabiola," at Monteporzio. To the English Students. Monteporzio, March 27, 1860, II. Antium. Lines left written in a Dictionary. Anzio, Ascension Week, 1860. III. Alba. On Paying Rent for the Villa at Castel Gandalfo "in Verses." To its Owner. Castel Gandalfo, July 28th, 1860. Lines on the Views of the Campagna and of the Lake of Albano, from Miss Plummer's Villa at Castel Gandalfo. Castel Gandalfo, July 30th, 1860. IV. Sallust's Gardens. I. All' Italia, II. Paraphrasis. V.B Diotallevi. III. Sonnet / To Italy. The text is red-ruled and decorated throughout with historiated initials and decorative head-and-tailpieces. Stamped with Wiseman's arms, the volume was evidently offered to members of the "Immaculate Conception Charity," presumably referring to an aid group inspired by the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. Cardinal Wiseman died during the winter of 1865 and was buried in the Catholic cemetery at Kensal Green. In 1907, the Cardinal's body was reinterred beneath a magnificent Gothic altar tomb in Westminster Cathedral.
Price: $125.00