Justin Croft : Rare & Fine Antiquarian Books - Specialist in antiquarian books, especially in the field of literature, history, social sciences, religion, art and architecture, science and medicine

First edition of this bitter polemic by a champion of Italian opera over its French rival, intended as a defence of the author's earlier Parallèle des Italiens et des Français. Raguenet, a scholarly French priest, had published the Parallèle in 1702 "which caused a lively controversy because of its author's manifest preference for Italian music. The Parallèle was the object of much discussion and created a small body of literature. An English translation... appeared in 1709, one German version... in 1722, and another...in 1759 and 1760. Le Cerf de la Viéville, a staunch supporter of Lully, answered in 1705 with a Comparaison de la musique italienne et de la musique française, which in turn elicited a rebuttal, Défense du Parallèle, from Raguenet in the same year" (Musical Quarterly). The spirited Défense pursues a page-by-page demolition of his critic's work, and inlcudes a defence of Raguenet's biography of Oliver Cromwell. Both the Parallèle and the Défense are important documents of eighteenth-century aesthetics, but both are rare in their first editions.The Stanford copy contains an engraved frontispiece, but none of the other library records or the bibliographies make mention of a frontispiece. There is no sign that one has ever been present or removed from our copy.