GABRIELE LANCILLOTTO CASTELLI. Principe di Torremuzza. Siciliae populorum et urbium regum quoque et tyrannorum veteres nummi Saracenorum epocham antec

First edition, folio, 2 vols. in 1, pp. [8], 103; 20; text in double column; engraved vignette title-pp., engraved head- and tail-pieces, engraved initials, 116 engraved plates of coins by Garafalo and Melchior della Bella after Garafalo showing hundreds of examples (obverse and reverse); contemporary paste-paper boards backed in vellum; edges worn, half-title dusty, but in all a very nice copy printed on thick paper.

A little-known Sicilian-printed study of ancient Sicilian coinage. Castelli concentrates on the prolonged period of the Greek colonization of Sicily, from about 550 B.C. when the first Sicilian coins appeared to about 240 B.C. when most of Sicily became a Roman province after the first Punic War. The second volume was published 8 years later because Castelli kept finding additional hitherto undescribed coins. Just before his death he published a further supplement (1791) with 9 plates and 15pp.