Das Römische Carneval. Berlin: Johann Friedrich Unger; Weimar and Gotha: Carl Wilhelm Ettinger, 1789.

First edition. Quarto, 231 × 198 mm. Red leather binding in period style, incorporating the original spine. Original wrappers absent; five plates supplied in good facsimile. With a presentation inscription dated 1971 to Carlo Schmid.

Goethe’s Das Römische Carneval is the most lavishly illustrated book produced during his lifetime. Printed in only 318 copies, it records the Roman Carnival as Goethe observed it during his Italian journey: the masks, carriages, street figures, games, Barberi horse-race, and final night of the moccoli.

This copy is distinguished by its provenance. It belonged to Carlo Schmid (1896–1979), jurist, Romance scholar, translator, parliamentarian, and one of the principal authors of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The presentation inscription to Schmid, dated 1971, gives this copy a notable twentieth-century political and intellectual association.

Although not in the exceptional wrappered state of the finest copies, this remains a significant example of the rare 1789 first edition, preserved in a handsome red leather binding and carrying important provenance from one of postwar Germany’s central constitutional figures.

LITERATURE

Hagen 193; Goedeke IV/3, 470 (III); Kippenberg I, 363; Hirzel A 156–157; Speck 2140; Brieger 711; Wilpert/Gühring 41; Lipperheide Sn 15–16. See also E. T. A. Batley, “Das Römische Karneval oder Gesellschaft und Geschichte,” Goethe-Jahrbuch 105 (1988). Further described in Atelier Zweig, Daemonic and Incommensurable: Four Centuries of Goethe.

PROVENANCE

Carlo Schmid (1896–1979), jurist, Romance scholar, parliamentarian, and co-author of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, with presentation inscription to him dated 1971. 

CONDITION

Good antiquarian condition. Red leather binding in period style incorporating the original spine. Original wrappers absent; five plates supplied in good facsimile.