Local history

PRENESTINE MEMORIES ARRANGEMENTS IN THE FORM OF ANNALS, BY PIETRANTONIO PETRINI, IN ROME AT THE PAGLIARINI PRINTING HOUSE, 1795.

1 volume in 4°, bound in contemporary half leather. Pp. 517, (1 blank.) + 6 final plates.

Light water streaks and scattered small stains, lower plate restored and small reinforcements at the corners of the boards, while very tiny losses remain at the lower right corner of the last 100 pages, far from the text.

Complete.

The third work written on the history of Palestrina dates back to 1795: Memorie prenestine disposte in forma di annali. The author of the work, printed in Rome at the Pagliarini Printing House, is the lawyer Pietrantonio Petrini (1722–1803), a historian from Palestrina, defined for his great erudition as the “Muratori of Palestrina.”

The work follows chronologically after the works of Suarez, Praenestes Antiquae (1655), and Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina città del Prisco Lazio (1756); it is particularly important because, for the first time, an ordinary citizen, not a religious figure, undertook a work “that stands out in the context of Palestrina historiography for the peculiar specificity of its cognitive contribution” (Fancelli, 1990). “Pietrantonio Petrini,” writes Fancelli again, “fully experiences the eighteenth century in its cultural climate, albeit from a necessarily provincial perspective.”

The Memorie prenestine is his main work, which in 1990 was reprinted in facsimile by the Circolo Culturale Prenestino “Simeoni,” with a preface by Paolo Fancelli. The book is characterised by its annalistic structure and the great emphasis given to archaeological discoveries occurring in those years; it is dedicated to Prince Stanislao Poniatowski, a collector of artworks, and consists of 517 pages and six engraved plates depicting the map of the Diocese of Palestrina, that of the City’s territory and its defensive walls, a now-lost mosaic, a cista and a mirror, three cameos, a sundial, and a woman’s head.

In the preface to the facsimile reprint, Fancelli highlighted the fact that “Petrini’s work is perhaps, in its own way and in a broad sense, a microhistory, in any case based on an objective knowledge of as many sources as possible. It is, moreover, a history of events, and in a territorial, not only urban, scope, with frequent references to a historical-geographical context that is predominantly, as expected, Roman. This undoubtedly gives the work a breadth of knowledge, making it part of a chain of events and circumstances on a much larger scale. The peculiarity of this work is its systematic approach in illustrating every event in some way related to the city (discoveries, plundering, plagues, constructions and restorations of buildings, episcopal settlements, etc.), all mostly confirmed by extensive footnotes citing sources: the whole is reinforced by the vast body of epigraphs and archival documents presented in the Appendices. The philological imprint of Muratori’s style is evident in the work… The discussion unfolds in a rigorously annalistic manner, in a concise and precise style… and therefore,” concludes Fancelli, “the facsimile reprint of Memorie by Pietrantonio Petrini had long been awaited so that the volume might be more readily available to those who might seek to fill the gaps in Palestrina historiography, making it a fruitful investment for all future studies.”

Petrini died on 29 July 1803; on the occasion of the first centenary of his death, the City of Palestrina commemorated him with a plaque on the façade of his birthplace in Piazza Garibaldi.

Local history

PRENESTINE MEMORIES ARRANGEMENTS IN THE FORM OF ANNALS, BY PIETRANTONIO PETRINI, IN ROME AT THE PAGLIARINI PRINTING HOUSE, 1795.

1 volume in 4°, bound in contemporary half leather. Pp. 517, (1 blank.) + 6 final plates.

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