Manuale di litografia a sia istruzione teorico-practica pel disegnatore e per lo stampatore litografo. Tratto dalle opere di [L-R] Bregeaud e [Alois] Senefelder

Milano: Coi tipi di Felice Rousconi, 1828. 12mo.  150 x 100 mm., [6 x 3 ¾ inches].  xvi, 261 pp., plus 5 engraved plates.  Bound in original blue printed paper wrappers.  Ownership stamps of “Ferdinandeum” on front wrapper and half-title and another  “Grimm” neatly stamped on the title-page.  Fine copy in original condition.
First Italian edition of the second manual offering instructions on the art  lithography to the printing trade.  It is based on the second edition of R. L. Bregeaut’s Manuel théoregique et pratique du dessinateur et de l;imprimeur lithographe, printed in Paris, 1827.  The first Italian (truncated) manual on the subject was published in 1819 Cosimo Ridolfi and Ferdinando Tartini and title, Memoria sulla litografia.  The first mention of lithography in Italy appeared in a rare broadside, Notificazione sulla facoltà privative di esercitare la nuova arte detta “Litografia”, printed in Rome in 1808.  This notice awarded Giovnni dall’Armi the exclusive use of lithography as a printing technique on the terriory of the Vatican State.  There is a copy of this rare broadside with a detailed description in the Graphic Arts Collection at Princeton University. 
The Manuale begins with a 16 page introduction to the history of lithography and is followed by a discussion of the type of stone that is best used for the process, where it is mined, how it is polished, and the characteristics that differentiate different qualities of stone.  This is followed by information on ink and how it is best prepared and used on the stone, the type of press that is required to produce acceptable impressions.  From here the text become quite detailed with information on methods and techniques for producing high quality lithographic impressions.
The first plates that accompany the text illustrates a type of prepared paper used in the printing process and two other plates illustrate images of the lithographica press.  There is also a plate illustrating workshop equipment and a hand press for pressing papers.
Bigmore & Wyman, I, p. 80.  Fumagalli, Lexicon typograhicum Italiae, pp. 358 for a short history of lithographic printing in Italy, and p.  508.  Not in the Jackson Burke collection catalogue.  For the broadside at Princeton see https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2019/03/06/giovanni-dallarmi-first-lithographic-printer-in-rome/. (Inventory #: 1356)