Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1628. Cicero, Opera, Basel, 1534, 2 volumes, contemporary Munich pigskin with painted foredges, from the Pillone library.

Cicero, Opera, Basel, 1534, 2 volumes, contemporary Munich pigskin with painted foredges, from the Pillone library

Estimate

80,000 - 120,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

CICERO, MARCUS TULLIUS. Opera quae aedita sunt hactenus omnia. (Basel: Johannes Herwagen (I), 1534)


FOUR VOLUMES IN TWO FROM THE RENOWNED PILLONE LIBRARY, WITH FORE-EDGE PAINTINGS BY CESARE VECELLIO depicting a man in an ermine-collared red robe, reading at a desk (volume 1) and another in a toga, plausibly the author, standing in a colonnade (volume 2). This is one of ten Pillone bindings in the Bibliotheca Brookeriana (see part I, Magnificent Books and Bindings, 11 October 2023, lot 52).


Odorico Pillone acquired the library of Bonaccorso Grino, who was in the service of Charles V in the 1540s and had a castle near Augsburg, through a marriage between Pillone’s sister and a relative of Grino. These books of German origin account for around 90 volumes of the extant Pillone library. In the 1580s, when Cesare Vecellio was in residence at the Pillone house, Odorico Pillone commissioned the painting of the fore-edges of some of his books, notably depicting the author writing at a desk. The library was kept intact in Belluno until 1874, when it was sold to a Venetian antiques dealer, who then sold 171 volumes with fore-edge paintings to an English collector (he retained one painted book for himself). The rest of the library was dispersed piecemeal.


This binding, as with another Pillone volume, Bibliotheca Brookeriana, 10 December 2024, lot 1168 (Origenes), can be attributed to the workshop of Hans and Kaspar Schinnagl, active in Munich between 1518 and 1558. Hans Schinnagl likely worked as a bookbinder at the Munich court library of Duke Albrecht V (1528-1579). He also bound books for Duke Ernst of Bavaria (1500-1560), who became Administrator of the Diocese of Passau in 1517. The Schinnagl workshop continued under the supervision of Hans’ son, Kaspar (EBDB w002513). The tools found on these bindings include EBDB s019630, r002459 and s019631, identified with the Schinnagl workshop.

4 works in two volumes, folio, 370 x 250 mm. Roman, italic and some Greek type, 48 lines plus headline. Woodcut printer's device on title-page and final verso of each volume, woodcut initials, printed section letters in inner margin. (Marginal dampstaining throughout, particularly towards gutter at head of first, some light spotting and browning.) (1) collation: *6 a-i6 AaA4 [2]a-z6 a*-b*8 c*6: 164 leaves. (20 mm paper flaw to i5r with some loss of text, repaired tear to i6 not affecting text, smudged ink stains mostly contained to margins on [2]p3, [2]q3 and [2]r5.) (2) collation: aA4 aaa-zzz6 AAA-ZZZ6 AAa-BBb6 CCc4 DDd6: 302 leaves. Some early marginal annotations. (10 mm paper flaw to mmm4 with some loss of text, small wormholes to lower margin towards end of volume, more significant worming to final leaf.) (3) collation: Aa6 A-S6 T4 V-Z6 Aa-Ll6 Mm4: 212 leaves. (4) collation: α6 β4 aa-zz6 AA-HH6 II-KK8: 212 leaves (only, of 272; lacking *6 a-i6). Some early marginal annotations. (Lacking 60-leaf index, small scattered ink stains to gg2 slightly affecting text.)


binding: Contemporary blind-stamped Munich binding (385 x 270 mm) of white goatskin over wooden boards by Hans and Kaspar Schinnagl, 2 volumes not identically tooled but both with floral lozenge tools, heads-in-profile roll and Kopfstempel, volume 1 with 1 central panel, volume 2 with 2, spines with 5 bands, Kopfstempel tooling in compartments, remains of 2 pairs of pigskin ties to each, "M.T. Cicero" lettered down fore-edge over elaborate, brightly coloured painted scenes, head- and tail-edges also decorated, with crimson marbling on tail-edge of second volume. (Bindings somewhat rubbed and scraped, slightly soiled, wormed pastedowns.)


provenance: [Bonaccorso Grino (died 1553), his library at Schloss Burtenbach, near Augsburg]—Odorico Pillone (1503-1594), by family descent to—Giorgio Pillone (1539-1611)—Paolo Maresio Bazolle (fl. 1874)—Sir Thomas Brooke, 1st Bt (1830-1908), engraved armorial exlibris, by family descent to—Humphrey Brooke (1914-1988)—Pierre Berès (1913-2008), Paris, commemorative ex-libris, sale, Bibliothèque Pillone, Paris, 1957, item 90—Bartolomé March Servera (1917-1998), ex-libris—Christie's, Valuable printed books and manuscripts: including … a fine group from the Pillone Library, London, 3 June 1998, lot 59. acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. references: USTC 675045; VD16 C 2815

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