Petrarca, Francesco. Le Rime del Petrarca. Pickering, G. 31, Lincoln's Inn Fields. [London]. 1822.

[4ff], 237, [10] printed pages in Italian. Engraved frontispiece and additional title-page. Includes index. Printed by Charles Corrall. First edition. All edges gilt. Inner gilt dentelles. Original primrose endpapers. Some leaves blackened in top inner margin. 46 x 82 mm. Contemporary full green morocco; spine richly decorated in gilt trellis motif with horizontal rules and gilt blocked titling; covers hand-tooled with symmetrical, arabesque central motif and complementary corner pieces. Slightly rubbed at corners and some edges. Spielmann, 407. Houghton, 194. Welsh, 5660. OCLC, 1450022024. An early example of a Pickering title because in 1826 he moved to Chancery lane. From Pickering's "Diamond Classics" series, a popular collection of miniature books designed to be affordable and portable. The small size (typically around 88 x 44 mm) was a significant achievement in printing technology at the time, utilizing a tiny 4.5-point type. Petrarch is widely known as the "father of Renaissance humanism", perfecting the 14-line sonnet form and having a major influence on subsequent lyric poetry across Europe.