An Exact Historie of the Late Revolutions in Naples; and of their Monstrous Successes, not to be parallel'd by any Ancient or Modern History. Published by the Lord Alexander Giraffi in Italian, and (for the rarenesse of the subject) rendred to English, by J. H. Esq.

London: Printed by R.A. for R. Lowndes, � 1650. FIRST EDITION OF THIS TRANSLATION. Small 8vo, 140 x 80 mms., pp. [viii], 206, title-page in red and black, and enclosed within a typographic border, the engraved frontispiece is the full-length engraved portrait, lightly coloured, of Masianiello, a.k.a. Tommaso Aniello (1620-1647), the Italian fisherman who played a leading role in the revolt against Spanish rule in Naples in 1647, later early 18th century panelled sheepskin; fore-edges very closely trimmed, title-page soiled, binding a little worn, with the top of the spine chipped, corners worn. A fair to good copy, with the early, neat ownership inscription of "John Edwards" in the upper half of title-page, and his autograph repeated upside-down on the verso of the last leaf. The translator of this Neapolitan history by Alessandro Giraffi is said to be "J. H." on the title-page, the initials of the political writer and historian James Howell (1594?-1666). The work translated by Howell is Giraffi's Le Rivolutioni di Napoli, published in Venice in 1647. The frontispiece in this edition depicts one of the two primary leaders of the 1647 revolt against Spanish rule in Naples: Masaniello, whose real name was Tommaso Aniello. Giulio Genoino was the second, and he was known as the "mind of Masaniello." Notably, Howell's own life was upturned by revolutionary events in his own country. As Wikipedia says, "On the eve of the English Civil War, he finally gained a secretaryship of the Privy Council, which according to one eminent critic, was 'very close to the type of appointment that he had sought for 20 years'. The conflict meant that he never took up the position, and at about the same time, he wrote his first book, or 'maiden Fancy', Dodona's Grove, which represented the history of England and Europe through the allegorical framework of a typology of trees." Howell "saw himself as a martyr to the royalist cause. On a visit to London early in 1643 he was arrested in his chambers, his books were seized, and he was imprisoned in the Fleet. There he remained for eight years…" (Oxford DNB). Howell's translation of Giraffi's account of the 1647 revolt was likely written while Howell was in prison, as the publication date of the first edition is 1650; and, according to Wikipedia, "[h]e was released in 1651". Oxford DNB hedges its bets,saying he was "release[d] from prison in 1650 or 1651." The historian David Como provides an erudite assessment of Howell's 1650 book: "That year, James Howell brought out a translation of Alessandro Giraffi's account of the Neapolitan tumults, which Howell entitled An Exact Historie of the late Revolutions in Naples. Howell was a well-travelled polyglot, with a pronounced taste for Italian culture, which helps to explain his attraction to this exotic fare; yet he was also a royalist sympathizer who had spent a considerable amount of time in prison for his allegiances. Although his motives for publication are uncertain, it seems likely that the book was intended as a sotto voce commentary on events in England, an invitation to readers to draw parallels between events in the two polities. Of course, by the time Howell went to press, the Neapolitan republic had collapsed and Spanish authority had been reasserted, thus perhaps rendering the analogy more poignant and, for Howell at least, exemplary. Whatever his motivation, Howell tapped into widespread popular fascination with the events in Naples. His rendition of Giraffi's book, with its crude woodcut of the plebeian rebel leader Masaniello, was an instant success …" (David R. Como, "God's evolutions: England, Europe, and the Concept of Revolution in the Mid-Seventeenth Century" in Scripting Revolution: A Historical Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions, ed. by Dan Edelstein and Keith Michael Baker (Stanford University Press, 2015), pp. 41-56, p. 47). Of seventeenth-century writers born in Wales, James Howell is one of the most important as well as most prolific. On the title-page of this copy of Exact Historie, there is the manuscript ownership inscription of one "John Edwards". This could be the early eighteenth-century Welsh poet John Edwards (1699-1776) or his later namesake John Edwards (1747-1792), also a significant Welsh poet. The former may be more likely, as the hand looks early. ESTC R21699.