Rare third enlarged edition of this prize-winning eulogy on Amerigo Vespucci, hailing him as the true discoverer of the continent that was to take his name. The eulogy was held at the famous Accademia Etrusca di Cortona on 15 October 1788. It states that Columbus was an impostor, ever fooled by visions of Asia and India. The author devoted his life to proving that Vespucci discovered America. In relation to a later edition of this work, Sabin says that "It is hardly possible to understand how the calumnies against Amerigo, which have so long been taught in every school, could have, for many years, survived this excellent refutation."
Father Stanislao Canovai (1740-1811) was a mathematics professor of the University of Florence. In the present work, which consists of the eulogy and two "dissertaziones", he vociferously argues that Vespucci landed in America before Columbus, and that he discovered Brazil before Cabral. The Elogio was to provoke a storm of controversy between the Italians, who believed that their countryman Vespucci was the first discoverer, and those who regarded his accounts as spurious, which gave rise to a spate of scholarly research on the early Spanish explorers. In two letters Canovai counters the criticisms of Bartolozzi and Tiraboschi in rather splenetic terms.
The first edition was published in Florence by Pietro Allegrini in 1788. It was shorter than the later editions, however, as it did not include the second "Dissertazione". Other editions were published in Cortona (1789), Modena (1790), and Florence (Giacchino Pagano, 1798). Canovai later restated and expanded his argument in his Viaggi d'Amerigo Vespucci (Florence, 1817).
The Elogio is dedicated to Duke Giovanni Luigi di Durfort (pp. iii-vi). The preface of the editor to the reader follows on pp. vii-xvi; on p. xvii is a "Condizioni" and on p. xviii an "Avvertimento". The Eulogy itself is on pp. 1-39; the "Dissertazione I. sopra Amerigi Vespucci" on pp. 1-55; and the "Dissertazione II. sulle vicende delle longitudine geografice estratta dal T. IX dei Saggi dell'Acc. Etr. di Cortona" on pp. 64, followed by two pages with "Errori" and "Correzioni".
With a green paper label ("303") mounted on the front pastedown. The boards are somewhat soiled, the spine is worn, two handwritten numbers on the front board ("52" and "861"). The font endpapers are torn in the gutter, page 39 of the first part is nearly detached. Otherwise in good condition. JCB II, ii, 3177; OPAC SBN IEIE005956 (9 copies); Sabin 10704; WorldCat 13601983, 1099545394; cf. Borba de Moraes I, p. 149 (other eds.: "a classic and sought after work"); Leclerc 102 (other ed.).