Editoria e censura in Terra di Bari nel decennio preunitario: le "Rime italiane e baresi" di Francesco Saverio Abbrescia

The paper outlines the editorial story of the most significant work for the knowledge of the identity and cultural history of Bari, the capital of Puglia : the Rime italiane e baresi of the local poet Francesco Saverio Abbrescia, printed in 1848. The section of Bari rhymes is today the only evidence of Bari original dialect, almost disappeared. The volume shows an complex editorial story, which is closely linked with the personal history of Abbrescia and with the Revolutional Rising that shook the Italian peninsula in 1848, with results different in the Preunitary States. We reconstructed the story analyzing some paratextual contents crossed with contemporary archival documents still available, which allow a realistic reconstruction of the events that first caused the seizure, later they determined the censorship : some year later the first printing, the volume reappeared in circulation without some forbidden poems because they praise the Constitution that Ferdinand IV, king of the Two Sicilies, granted for a few months in the first half of 1848.