Wednesday, May 29, 2013

New Arrivals in French and Italian Studies

A selection of books that have recently made their way to the library . . .


Italian Works

Avati, Pupi. La grande invenzione : un'autobiografia. 1. ed. [Milan, Italy]: Rizzoli, 2013.

Cerami, Vincenzo, Alla luce del sole. 1. ed. Milano: Mondadori, 2013.

Muñiz Muñiz, Maria de las Nieves. L'immagine riflessa : percezione nazionale e trame intertestuali fra Italia e Spagna : da Petrarca a Montale, da Garcilaso a Guillén. Firenze: F. Cesati, 2012.

Tabucchi, Antonio, and Anna Dolfi. Di tutto resta un poco: letteratura e cinema. 1. ed. in "Le comete." Milano: G. Feltrinelli, 2013.


French Works

Buot, François. Gay Paris: une histoire du Paris interlope entre 1900 et 1940. [Paris]: Fayard, 2013.

Catani, Damian, Evil: A History In Modern French Literature and Thought. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

Chalvidant, Jean. Secrets d'ETA. Paris: J. Picollec, 2012.

Dufief, Pierre-Jean, and Marie Perrin-Daubard, eds. Violence politique et littérature au XIXe siècle. Paris: Manuscrit, 2012.

Jaccottet, Philippe. Taches de soleil, ou d'ombre : notes sauvegardées : 1952-2005. [Paris]: Bruit du temps, 2013.

Jouanna, Arlette. The Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre: The Mysteries of a Crime of State (24 August 1572). 1st English-language ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.

Louis, Édouard., and Annie Ernaux. Pierre Bourdieu: L'insoumission en héritage. 1re éd. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2013.

Open Roads, Closed Borders: The Contemporary French-Language Road Movie. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2013.

Ricci, Maria Teresa. Figures et langages de la marginalité aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles: actes du colloque d'octobre 2010. Paris: Champion, 2013.

Saint-Amand, Denis. La littérature à l'ombre : sociologie du zutisme. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2012.

Trouillot, Lyonel. Le doux parfum des temps à venir. 1re éd. Arles: Actes sud, 2013.


Friday, May 24, 2013

Au revoir, Georges

Chansonnier, poet, songwriter Georges Moustaki passed away this week...
I saw him perform in Paris in a small club in 2000 -
Here are a few titles at the library about him and by him.

Pelle, André., and Georges Moustaki. The Colours of Alexandria. Alexandria, Egypt: Harpocrates, 2005.

Calvet, Louis Jean, Georges Moustaki: La Ballade Du Métèque. [Paris?]: Fayard, 2004.

Moustaki, Georges. Petite Rue Des Bouchers: Roman. [Paris]: Editions de Fallois, 2001.

Moustaki, Georges., Georges Moustaki, and Siegfried Meir. Fils Du Brouillard. Paris: Fallois, 2000.

Piaf, Edith, Edith Piaf Song Collection. Milwaukee, WI: H. Leonard Corp., 199.

Kaplan, Nelly., Georges Moustaki, Bernadette Lafont, and Julien Guiomar. A Very Curious Girl.(film)

Moustaki, Georges., and Cécile Barthélemy. Georges Moustaki. Paris: P. Seghers, 1970.

Moustaki, Georges., and Mariella Righini. Questions a La Chanson. [Paris] Stock, 1973.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Recently Acquired Rare and Antiquarian Materials

This month's rare and antiquarian materials bring together summer reading for all tastes, including, appropriately enough, Giovanni Lapi's treatise on why Rome, contrary to popular opinion, need not be avoided during the summer and Cadet de Vaux's helpful study on the dangers of burying the dead in town--another good reason to visit Rome at any time, since the eternal city even in antiquity had required the vast majority of the dead to be buried outside the city walls. For those whose pleasure reading privileges the heroic, we feature two works by women: Alexandrine Sophie de Bawr's collection of stories and Teresa Bandettini's translation of the Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna. Finally, if your tastes, regardless of the season, incline toward science, we have the Duchess of Parma's precautions in a time of cholera and Terrien's study of hysteria and neurasthenia among peasants, which, à propos of longer and warmer days, he attributes in part to consuming too much white wine!


 Bawr, Alexandrine Sophie de, Histoires Fausses Et Vraies ... Paris: Librairie de Fournier, 1835.

"Uncommon first edition of this collection of seven stories, one of which, Le Schelling, is set in Dumfriesshire, Scotland and four others which contain female heroes’ names in the titles. Alexandrine-Sophie Goury de Champgrand, Countess Saint-Simon, baroness Bawr (1773-1860) had been married first to Saint Simon, the political theorist and founder of the eponymous utopian movement, and later to the Russian-German count Bawr, who died in 1810 in a carriage accident. She was a composer, pianist and performer of Lieder and operas, playwright, and author. With the publication of the essay Histoire de musique which appeared in the periodical Encyclopédie des dames in 1823 she became the first female historian of music."

Cadet de Vaux, Antonio Alexis. (1785). Essai historique sur les lieux et les dangers des sépultures & des inhumations dans les villes & dans les églises. Paris: chez la Veuve Valade, Imprimeur-Libraire, 1785.

"Rare first edition of this treatise by the renowned French chemist and philanthropist Antonio Cadet de Vaux, on the dangers of burial sites in towns and churches. Cadet de Vaux opens: “The dangers of tombs in churches, or in cemeteries placed at the heart of towns, has long excited the zeal of several famous doctors. Nonetheless, the abuse continues”. He discusses the traditional reasons for burials in occupied areas, and the history of the regulations surrounding the practice, before describing some of the dangers associated with burial in confined spaces. One instance he reports is the case of 149 mourners out of 170 who were the victim of a putrid fever after attending a burial at Saulieu in Burgundy, while he also notes the deaths of 15 people after the burial of a village squire near Nantes."

Lapi, Giovanni Girolamo. Ragionamento contra la volgare opinione di non potere venire a Roma nella estate …. Roma: Stamperia di Antonio de’ Rossi, 1749.

"Rare first edition of this essay on the air of Rome and its environs, by the Roman doctor and author Giovanni Girolamo Lapi. It was common practice among those who could afford it to leave Rome during the summer, and the popular view, as Lapi notes, is that “nobody should come to Rome during the summer, if he does not wish to be at risk of becoming dangerously ill”. Lapi examines the climate, the city’s topography, the use of technologies such as aquaducts, and his observations on disease, while drawing on historical evidence from writers dating from Cicero’s time onwards, to show that Rome is perfectly healthy during summer; or at least not sufficiently hazardous to merit leaving (he does describe some of the illnesses that are common in the city, and means of treating them).  Lapi also published works on the treatment of smallpox and on Roman flint."

Maria Luisa, Duchess of Parma. DISPOSIZIONE SOVRANA che prescrive delle cautele sanitarie per tener lontano il Cholera morbus. Parma, 1831.

"A very good copy of this uncommon decree, issued by Maria Luisa, Duchess of Parma, detailing the precautions taken by the city of Parma in anticipation of the cholera outbreak that was expected to arrive. The decree describes the limits on goods that could be brought in to the city, and the certification required for goods sourced from cities known to be affected by cholera, before giving directions for quarantine for travellers and for cattle, and for the disinfection of incoming mail. The final section describes the criminal penalties for those found to be contravening these regulations, and is followed by templates for health certificates for goods, travellers, and livestock."

Quintus, Teresa Bandettini, Leonardo Nardini, Francesco Rosaspina, and Angelica Kauffmann.Paralippomeni d'Omero. Modena: Dalla Società Tipografica., 1815.


"Rare first edition of this translation into Italian verse of the Posthomerica of Quintus of Smyrna, by the Tuscan poet Teresa Bandettini-Landucci. The Posthomerica is the only surviving Greek epic that gives a full narrative of the Trojan War between the Iliad and the Odyssey. The author lived, to the best of our knowledge, in the late 4th century AD, and his work covers the period after the end of the Iliad, until the end of the Trojan war, in a series of fourteen books, whose style is clearly based on that of Homer, but which also draw on the same cyclic poems as those which inspired Virgil and others. The first printed edition was produced by Aldus Manutius in 1504. The translator, Bandettini (1763-1837), was born in Lucca, and entered into the Arcadia under the name Amarilli Etrusca. A noted critic of the romantic movement, she was one of most important improvisatory poets of her time, greatly esteemed by the likes of Mascheroni, Bettinelli and Alfieri."

Terrien, Maxime. L'hystérie et la neurasthénie chez le paysan. Angers: J. Siraudeau, 1906.

"First edition of this unusual study of hysteria and neurasthenia in rural populations, by the Breton physician and author Firmin Terrien. While acknowledging the popular conception that nervous diseases were “des maladies presque exclusivement urbaines”, the result of endless balls, spectacles, and other diversions, Terrien argues that despite the calm of rural life, and the lack of grand ambition in the peasant, neuropathologies are extremely common in country dwellers. This he attributes primarily to the peasant’s appetite for alcohol (5 or 6 litres of wine per day is, he claims, par for the course for a peasant of the Bocage, made worse by the fact that it is white wine), offering over forty case histories."

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Valerio Magrelli visits the Bay Area and Stanford




The Department of French & Italian is pleased to present

A talk by Valerio Magrelli
on 20th-Century Italian Poetry

(The talk will be in Italian.)

Wednesday, May 15th, 5pm
Pigott Hall (260), Room 216

Valerio Magrelli is arguably the most accomplished living Italian poet.

He is also a scholar of French and Italian literature. He studied philosophy at the University of Rome and is now a professor at the Universities of Pisa and Cassino.

His first collection of poetry was published in 1980, when he was just twenty-three years old. He has since published several collections published by Mondadori, Einaudi, and Laterza, and he has also edited important anthologies of contemporary poetry.

He is the author of several academic studies on French literary traditions and figures such as Joubert, Valéry, Baudelaire, and others. He has written introductions to Italian editions of important works by Apollinaire, Gide, Marivaux, Rostand, Conrad, Auden, Prévert, Blok, Beaumarchais, and Dumas, as well as editions of work by Italian writers and artists.

He contributes actively to Italian newspapers and periodicals and been the recipient of several prestigious awards such as the following prizes -- the Mondello, the Viareggio, the Frascati, the Brancati, the Montale, and the Feltrinelli, in addition to the Premio Nazionale Letterario Pisa.

His work has been translated into several languages including English, French, and Spanish.

Click here for his works at Stanford University Libraries

Magrelli will also be speaking at the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco on May 16 at 6:30pm


brought to you by...
Sarah Sussman, curator of French and Italian Collections