Folio format (375x280 mm). 27 pages, (7), with 2 signed etchings by Enotrio Pugliese. Text in Italian. A print run of 150 numbered copies (No. 49), hand-printed on Fabriano laid paper in Bodoni Antiqua round type, size 14. Cream-colored softcover; sturdy light green cardboard slipcase. “La Ginestra” is the last canto composed by Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), and in it, so to speak, he presents to readers the conclusions he has reached. To the spiritualist philosophy and, more generally, to the ideals and vain illusions to which the people of his time seemed to turn in order to deny the reality of the human condition, the poet contrasts a sense of brotherhood and stoic endurance in the face of a nature he perceived as a “stepmother.” Vesuvius, once green and flourishing, thus becomes the symbol of nature’s seemingly benign face, which suddenly sweeps everything away with its fury, including man and all his illusions. In such hostile terrain, however, the fragrant and slow-growing broom manages to thrive, which Leopardi presents as a symbol of heroic tenacity in the desert of existence. Man must be capable of reacting to the adversities of existence like the broom, which bends to the violence of nature but knows how to react and grow back. Enotrio Pugliese (1920–1989), born in Buenos Aires to Calabrian immigrants and returned to Italy in 1926, was particularly attentive to the causes that drove thousands of people to seek their fortune in distant lands. In his paintings and engravings, he was a sensitive interpreter not only of Calabria’s natural beauty but also of its poverty and hopes; he remained deeply attached to the region throughout his life. Editiones Dominicae Catalogue, 27.