138 - Baffo, Giorgio. Universal Collection of Works. Cosmopoli, 1789. A manuscript version of Baffo’s erotic works

Baffo, Giorgio. Universal Collection of Works. Cosmopoli, 1789. A manuscript version of Baffo’s erotic works Baffo, Giorgio. Universal Collection of Works. Cosmopoli, 1789. Octavo (196 x 148 mm); [2], 306 pages. Manuscript on paper in elegant 18th-century cursive script, title within a decorative frame. 20th-century full-parchment binding, smooth spine with handwritten title, marbled edges. A collection of 178 licentious sonnets, songs, and madrigals, written in the purest Venetian dialect. Baffo led an irreproachable life and held important positions in the public administration of the Venetian Republic, while privately cultivating a passion for obscene poems, which he composed frenetically and tirelessly (“I rack my brain day and night / To write rich and buttery sonnets, / To amuse the ladies and their lovers”). Although he did not allow them to be published, he took pleasure in the various admirers who circulated handwritten copies, so his reputation as a pornographic poet spread rapidly. In 1771, a small volume was published posthumously in a limited print run for the poet’s friends, and in 1789, the *Raccolta universale* of his works appeared with the fictitious place of publication “Cosmopoli,” from which the poems in this collection likely originate. It was not until the 20th century that Baffo achieved literary fame when Guillaume Apollinaire published a selection of his poems with a scholarly introductory essay in which he described him as “the greatest priapic poet who ever lived and, at the same time, one of the most lyrical poets of the 18th century.” A manuscript version of Baffo’s erotic works