262 - MANUSCRIPT. — Rome. Memories of My Pilgrimage to the Eternal City. 1883. Manuscript in-8 (125 x 190 mm), comprising 2 folios and 141 pages, black morocco leather binding in the Jansenist style, interior lace trim, green moiré lining and endpapers, gilt headband, untrimmed (Bound circa 1900).

MANUSCRIPT. — Rome. Memories of My Pilgrimage to the Eternal City. 1883. Manuscript in-8 (125 x 190 mm), comprising 2 folios and 141 pages, black morocco leather binding in the Jansenist style, interior lace trim, green moiré lining and endpapers, gilt headband, untrimmed (Bound circa 1900). A charming tribute to friendship. An account of a six-week trip taken by two friends in Italy, particularly in Rome, where they visited the city’s churches, museums, and antiquities. The narrator, apparently a native of Sens, left Cannes to join her friend in Nice. Their stay in Rome was followed by a train journey to Monte Cassino, Subiaco, Naples, Pompeii, Ancona, Venice, Florence, Milan, and Turin, before returning to France... The manuscript is adorned with six original pen-and-ink drawings in black ink, including three full-page illustrations outside the main text (Venice, the Forum of Pompeii, and the Santa Casa di Loreto). The first page is framed by a “lace” border drawn in red ink, featuring two small views of Florence and the basilica in Rome. The manuscript was apparently given as a gift by one of the two friends to the other, as evidenced by this attached handwritten note: Dear friend, here is a souvenir—this time it’s beautiful, and you’ll love these pen-and-ink drawings […]. May it already take us far away… I’ve wanted to give you this journey for a long time, and I hope it brings you joy: it was a surprise gift for my birthday in 1906.