La Corona Estense: Sonetti Ebraici … Francesco III, Duca di Modena … per il … della Nascita … Primo Infante … Figlio Ereditario (The Crown of Este: Hebrew Sonnets in honor of Francesco III, Duke of Modena … upon the birth of a Firstborn Son … to the Heir), Israel Benjamin Bassani, Venice: Guglielmo Zerletti, 1750

19 leaves (10 ¾ x 7 ¾ in.; 272 x 195 mm). Printed in Hebrew and Italian, on facing pages (save for the Italian introduction). Text printed in black ink with engraved illustrated vignettes printed on nearly every page in blue ink. Illustrated Italian title page with engraved illustration in blue; Italian introduction and thirty sonnets, each with initial letter within engraved ornamental vignette, and each followed by an ornamental panel, all printed in blue ink. Additional crown vignettes, in blue, heading ff. 4v, 5r. Three decorative tailpiece vignettes on verso of final leaf, in black ink. Light marginal dampstains; light wear to head near fore edge. Later cream colored paper boards.

Vinograd, Venice 1889.

This elaborately decorated collection of sonnets may well have been one of a limited edition of presentation copies, printed in two colors, for distribution to dignitaries of either the Jewish community or the ducal retinue. The sonnets and the volume were composed in honor of the birth of Rinaldo Francesco d'Este, the grandson of Duke Francesco III. The child was born to Francesco’s heir Ercole Rinaldo who would in fact succeed to the Dukedom upon Francesco III’s death in 1780. However, the young child whose birth was so joyously celebrated in these 31 sonnets (16 in Italian and 15 in Hebrew) did not survive, dying shortly after the publication of these verses, at the tender age of five months old.