La Donna Onesta [Two Copies]

Padova: Nella Stamperia del Seminario, 1742. Very Good. Padova: Nella Stamperia del Seminario, 1742. First Italian Edition. Two copies of the same title (see below). Octavos; [12],203,[7]pp. (both copies evidently lacking half title page, otherwise collated complete).

Copy A: 19.5x13cm. Bound in original stitched thick rustica wrappers, spine titling in contemporary manuscript. Light soil to wrappers, the textblock appears to have been recently trimmed and restitched into the binding, though contents remain fresh and sound. A Very Good or better example of the work in its original state.

Copy B: 21.5x14cm. From the library of the late French sculptor Jean Joseph Marie Sixte de Marliave-Toulouse (1918-1999) with his pictorial ex libris laid in. Bound in modern blue cloth, black gilt spine label, Victorian-era illustrations pasted to both covers, that to upper cover hand-colored; marbled endpapers with collage elements to front flyleaves. Additionally adorned with Marliave's ink and watercolor illustrations to pp. 41, 129, 167, 169, 171, 176, and 177. Largish loss at top fore-edge corner of pp. 145/6 with brief loss of text, otherwise a Very Good copy depending on how you look at it.

Fascinating pair of volumes and an excellent example of the term, to quote Allie Alvis quoting the internet, "To be loved is to be changed." The work in question is Maria Basadonna Manin's exceptionally rare Italian translation of Franciscan priest Jacques Du Bosc's foundational treatise on female comportment, first published in 1632 as L'Honnête Femme, serving as both a continuation of and response to Nicolas Faret's work L'Honnête Homme. In his work, Du Bosc "defines the cultivation of reason and learning as key elements of women's honnêteté...then examines the depictions of women deploying their judgment socially through correspondence" (Wolfgang and Nell).

However, by the mid-18th century, when this Italian translation first appeared, the expectations of "honnêteté" in men and women had vastly diverged, the expectation for reasoning and education in women largely atrophying in favor of an emphasis on chastity and modesty above all else. This is the only work we can attribute to Maria Basadonna Manin, who perhaps took up its translation as a means of pushing back on this troubling trend away from women's autonomy and education.

The two copies, laid side by side, provide an excellent portrait of the importance of copy specific study, the one very nearly perfectly preserved in its original state, the other commandeered by a 20th century artist into a sketchbook and scrapbook, showcasing a detailed link between the text and the reader's often comic imagination--the chapter on chivalry featuring an aristocratic man doffing his cap, while the section on jealousy shows a heavily bearded man hiding behind the wall of text with his pistol drawn as he observes a couple canoodling on the facing page.

This edition exceptionally scarce, with no copies in the trade or auction record, and just three located in U.S. institutions, at UCLA, U. Chicago, and Princeton as of April. 2026.

Reference: See Aurora Wolfgang and Sharon Diane Nell's paper "The Theory and Practice of Honnêteté in Jacques Du Bosc's 'L'Honnête Femme' and 'Nouveau Receuil de lettres des dames de ce temps,'" (2014, retrieved online).