1757 Elegantiae Latini Sermonis Seu Aloisia Sigaea Toletana

Description

Leather Binding, Scarce

A new edition.

Scace work, in any edition.

Bound in full calf.

Illustrated with a frontispiece. 

This novel is considered to be the first pornographic work written in Latin. It forms a collection of dialogues with Tullia, an Italian woman in her twenties, who is charged with teaching her young cousin Ottavia about sex and sexuality by Ottavia's mother. To do so, she seduces Ottavia and teaches her in a practical nature. 

Two parts in one, as called for, with the title page to each part. Pages iii-xxiv with the signature a-b2 have been misbound after the title page to part two, rather than to part one. 

Signature runs [4], A-I8, K-O2, [1], a, a-b2, A-I8, K-L6. 

Written by French lawyer and historian, Nicolas Chorier, although initially this work was attributed to Spanish poet, Luisa Sigea de Velasco. This work was believed to be her 'Sotadic Satire' on the secrets of love and sex due to the fact that the novel is written from a female perspective. It was believed to then have been translated into the Latin form from the Spanish manuscript by Dutch humanist, Johannes Meursius. This was a fabrication, and the work was actually written by Chorier.

This work has been published under many different titles, in several languages. The English title is the 'Dialogues of Luisa Siegea' or 'The School of Women, or the Seven Flirtatious Encounters of Aloisia'. Upon its initial publication, the work was circulated through the libertine community, under various imprints. All details of eighteenth editions of this work on Copac and Worldcat state that the imprints to title pages are false and that they were actually published in Paris.