DE ZIGNO, Marco (1780-?). Spese occorse nel viaggio fatto da Padova nella Svizzera con mia moglie Marta Mac-guire, col mio ragazzino di nome Achilletto, col custode dello stesso Milania Walter, e con Giuseppe Maffei Domestico ["Expenses incurred in the trip made from Padua to Switzerland with my wife Marta Macguire, with my little boy named Achilletto, with the janitor of the same Milania Walter, and with Giuseppe Maffei servant"]. Paper manuscript in Italian. 20 July 1819-28 January 1820.

UNPUBLISHED TRAVEL DIARIES OF THE DE ZIGNO FAMILY IN SWITZERLAND AND TUSCANY

274x188 mm. Contemporary cardboards (spine reinforced). Some occasional marginal staining, but well preserved.

Contents:

-Pp. 1-16, 21-30, 33-38 (the pagination jumps from p. 16 to 21 but with a catchword to p. 22 and from p. 30 to 33): account of the travel expenses, such as tolls, tips, food, restaurants, ice cream, coffee, tobacco, wine (Bordeaux and St-Georges), transportation, clothes, shoes, hats, hairdresser, box at La Scala and Teatro Re in Milan, etc.;

-Pp. 39-42: “Nota del denaro pagatomi da diversi nel mio viaggio” (‘Note of the money paid to me by several during my trip') with related currency exchange;

Pp. 43-44: “Spese di Viaggio del mio Sig. Marco a Ginevra” (‘Travel expenses of my Lord Marco in Geneva');

Pp. 45-[63]: lists of nobles and people of high social rank divided by city (Venice, Padua, Milan, Bologna, Trieste, Vicenza, Rome, Brescia, and Florence) and nation (English in Venice and Padua, Sicilians in Padua);

-2 blank leaves;

-Pp. 1-108 (pagination restarts): detailed account of the trip, written on an almost daily basis in the style of a diary, with references to, among other things, libraries, booksellers, the Cercle de l'Ecu in Geneva, the bust of Haller, the Orell and Füssli store in Zurich, the Pertinchamp bridge in Turin, the art collection in the Durazzo palace in Genoa, the bookseller Stella, and the La Scala, Re and Canobbiana theaters in Milan, where De Zigno met Gioia, Fagnani, etc., to name but a few passages;

-3 blank leaves;

-2 final leaves containing the travelogue index for the year 1819 only (up to p. 100) and a short note.

The journey, which lasted from 10 July 20 1819 to 28 January 1820, took in the following cities: Padua (place of departure and return), Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Milan, Arona, Martigny, Geneva, Lausanne, Chamonix, Fribourg, Bern, Murgenthal, Lucerne, Biel, Zurich, Schaffhausen, Baden, Basel, Yverdun, Nyon, Turin, Alexandria, Novi, Genoa, Pavia, Milan, Brescia, and Verona.

Accompanying Marco De Zigno on the trip were his wife, namely Irish noblewoman Maria Creagh Maguire, and his son Achille.

Marco, son of Pietro, was born in 1780. Like his father, he was a doctor of law. During the Italic government he was a member of the Councils of the Kingdom and of the Prefecture, and then held other important posts. He married Maria Creagh Maguire in 1805. In 1838 he was admitted with his family to the Austrian hereditary nobility (cf. G.A. de Concini, La famiglia De Zigno di Padova, in: “Giornale araldico, genealogico, diplomatico italiano”, 1, 12, Fermo, 1874, pp. 370-374).

His son Achille (1813-1891) was to become a prominent naturalist, geologist and fossil collector, as well as the author of important works on the soils of the Alps from Carnia to Adige, on cetaceans, chelonians and fossil plants. Born in Padua on January 14, 1813, Achille was educated by his Irish-born mother and a series of private tutors. He never attended any school or university, but extensive travels and sojourns in Switzerland, France and England enabled the young nobleman to acquire a profound knowledge of the major European languages. His youth also saw the birth of his deep interest in the natural sciences, particularly botany and geology. The De Zigno family was on friendly terms with many of leading exponents of the community of naturalists in the Veneto, from whom Achille received advice and the first specimens for what was to become one of the most important private collections of botany, paleontology and geology. In 1833 Achille settled in the villa at Vigodarzere (Padua), to personally manage the family's lands and properties. Deeply conservative and a leader of the pro-Austrian faction in his own city, he held various administrative posts in the Padua municipality (cf. P. Corsi, De Zigno, Achille, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, 39, 1991, s.v.).

Mary Maguire, an educated and wealthy woman, was responsible for the renovation works of Villa De Zigno-La Certosa at Vigodarzere, which had passed to her husband's family in the eighteenth century; it was she who had the large garden laid out and who used to invite distinguished men of letters and poets to the Certosa.

(offered together with:)

DE ZIGNO, Marco (1780-?). Descrizione del viaggio fatto nella Svizzera con mia moglie Maria Mac-guire, col ragazzino di nome Achilletto, colla custode dello stesso Milania Walter, e con Giuseppe Maffei servitore (‘Description of the trip made to Switzerland with my wife Maria Mac-guire, with the little boy named Achilletto, with the janitor of the same Milania Walter, and with Giuseppe Maffei servant'). Paper manuscript in Italian. 20 July-22 August 1819.

285x200 mm. 22 unnumbered leaves, of which only the first 12 are written. Unbound. Two leaves loose. Some occasional staining, but well preserved.

The account of the trip to Switzerland, from the departure from Padua on 20 July 1819 to the stop in Freiburg on August 22, is also given in this second manuscript, which appears to be a nice copy of the same text found in the manuscript described above.

(offered together with:)

DE ZIGNO, Marco (1780-?). [Untitled] Journey to Florence and Tuscany. Paper manuscript in Italian. October 1827-May 1828.

Ca. 210x150 mm. The manuscript is made of six loose quires of slightly different formats, numbered as follows: pp. 1-42, 45-64, 67-124, and 5 final blank pages.

The travel account begins in Bologna, where the author stays for a few days before leaving for Florence on October 10. His long Florentine stay is interrupted only by a visit to Pisa and Livorno in April 1828. On May 10 De Zigno left for Bologna, on the 12^th he stopped in Ferrara, and on May 13, 1828 he left for Padua from Rovigo.

This interesting travelogue, written almost daily in the style of a diary, is full of information about paintings, prints, books, social gatherings, parties, men of letters, nobles, intellectuals and artists whom the author met during his travels, visiting noble houses, libraries, galleries and bookstores, especially that of Giuseppe Molini (1772-1856), who was also librarian of the Palatine Library at the time. Among the books De Zigno saw at Molini's were Aldus's Greek Bible (1518) and Bodoni's two-volume Typographical Manual (1818). He then goes on to describe his visits to the Botanical Gardens and private residences in Florence, such as Palazzo Riccardi and Casa Mazzi, and indulges in details of daily life, such as reading the news of the battle of Navarino in the Gazzetta di Firenze on 20 October 1827.

The lot offered here thus consists of three manuscripts, apparently unpublished, which belong to the private papers of Marco De Zigno. Their interest lies both in the wealth of practical details (the expense account is extremely detailed) and in the window they open on the travel habits, relationships and tastes of a cultivated and international family of the period, especially as these travels had a major influence on the education of the young Achille, destined to become a leading scientist.

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