Ariosto, Orlando furioso, Venice, 1533, contemporary Spanish blind-tooled calf, the Vernon–Holford copy
Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
ARIOSTO, LUDOVICO. Il Furioso. Orlando furioso di messer Ludovico Ariosto da lui proprio con la giunta d'altri canti nuovi ampliato & corretto. Venice: for Francesco I Bindoni and Maffeo Pasini, 1533
AN EXTREMELY RARE EDITION OF ARIOSTO'S WIDELY INFLUENTIAL EPIC POEM; THE VERNON–HOLFORD COPY.
Il Furioso was first published in 1516, though it did not appear in its complete form until 1532. This copy is in a contemporary Spanish binding with a typical blind-tooled border roll, but the gilt dolphin and bee stamps are likely a later addition, as gilt tooling is extremely rare on Spanish bindings.
Sotheby's is grateful to Professor Mirjam M. Foot for her assistance in researching this binding.
Small 8vo (146 x 104 mm). Gothic type, text in 2 columns, 40 lines plus headline. collation: A-P8 Q6 R-2G8 2H4: 242 leaves. Title-page printed in red and black with woodcut border, woodcut printer's devise on recto of final leaf, woodcut portrait of Ariosto on verso of final leaf within woodcut border with the motto "pro bono malum", leaves numbered in manuscript, some marginal annotations in Italian in two early modern hands, some sections of text crossed out by an early reader. (Some marginal dampstaining.)
binding: Contemporary Spanish brown calf (151 x 112 mm), panel surrounded by triple roll border, the outer roll containing a lion, a hound, a fox, and a boar, with the binder's mark (a T with a small o above); the middle roll of flowers and sprays; the inner roll containing a shield and crossed clubs, a mask, crossed axes, a bow and quiver, crossed spears, crossed swords, a man's head, two profile heads back to back; later gilt tools in the narrow central panel (a dolphin in centre and at each interior angle a bee), spine with 4 full bands and 5 half bands in ten compartments, later speckled edges, housed in modern marbled slipcase. (Slight worming at foot of spine, spine ends neatly repaired, neatly recornered.)
provenance: "ex libris Mardochoei Dove 1800", ownership inscription to title—George John Venables Vernon, 5th Baron Vernon (1803-1866), notable student of Dante—Richard Stayner Holford (1802-1892), by descent to— Lieut. Col. Sir George Lindsay Holford, his sale, Sotheby's, 5 December 1927, lot 51, £26 to Maggs—Jean Fürstenberg (1890-1982), booklabel—Martin Breslauer Inc., New York, catalogue 106, item 36. acquisition: Purchased in 1990 from Martin Breslauer, New York. references: USTC 810570 (listing 2 institutional copies); Edit16 CNCE 2568. exhibited: Musée d'art et d'histoire, Collection Jean Furstenberg (Geneva 1966), no. 89
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