[Decadent movement] Gabriele d'Annunzio (1863-1938). Sogno d'un mattino di primavera

Milan, Fratelli Treves, 1899. (6), 104, (16 p. of advertisements) p. Beautiful cont. red morocco, gilt spine, title lettered in gold, boards w. gilt ruling and corner pieces, gilt inside dentelles, marbled endpapers, upper pastedown with bookplate "from the library of Edward Hutton", signed and dated March 1899 by the author on half title. Front cover detached from spine, some p. discol., otherwise in excellent condition.

Annunzio was an Italian ultra-nationalist, poet, playwright, orator, journalist, aristocrat, and army officer during World War I. He occupied a prominent place in Italian literature from 1889 to 1910 and later political life from 1914 to 1924. He was often referred to under the epithets Il Vate ('the Poet') or Il Profeta ('the Prophet'). He was associated with the Decadent movement in his literary works, which interplayed closely with French Symbolism and British Aestheticism. Such works represented a turn against the naturalism of the preceding romantics and was both sensuous and mystical.