Covarrubias, Rimedio de' giuocatori, Venice, 1561, contemporary red morocco gilt, with the Römer family bookplate

COVARRUBIAS, PEDRO DE. Rimedio de' giuocatori, composto per il r.p. m. Pietro di Cobarubias dell'ordine de' Predicatori. Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1561 [bound with:]

TAEGIO, BARTOLOMEO. L'humore, dialogo. Milan: Giovanni Antonio degli Antoni for Girolamo & Valerio Meda, 1564

FIRST ITALIAN EDITION OF COVARRUBIAS' TREATISE ON GAMBLING AND FIRST EDITION OF A RARE TREATISE ON WINE, BOUND FOR THE RÖMER FAMILY OF NUREMBERG.

Covarrubias' Remedio de jugadores is a treatise on the evils of gambling, first published in Burgos in 1519, and here translated into Italian by Alfonso Ulloa. Bartolomeo Taegio’s work on viticulture and wine, cast in the form of a dialogue with Giovan Paolo Barza (one of the interlocutors of Taegio’s La Villa), is dedicated to Giuliano Gossolini, secretary of the Consiglio segreto di Milano. A second, corrected edition was printed at the same press the same year (on their differences, see the edition by Luisella Giachino, Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2019). The book is not listed by André Simon in his Bibliotheca Bacchica (1927-1932), nor is it cited by Georges Vicaire in his Bibliographie gastronomique (1890), although his large engraved bookplate is found in this copy.

The red goatskin binding is possibly Milanese. The treatment of the spine (3 full and 4 half-bands, the compartments filled with an arabesque tool in blind, the half-bands with gilt cross-hatching) is characteristically North Italian. The tool forming the centerpiece is similar (Breslauer believed identical) to one reproduced by Tammaro De Marinis (La Legatura artistica in Italia, pl. 429) from the binding on the statutes of the Milanese merchants’ guild.

Pasted to an endpaper is the armorial bookplate of the Römer family of Nuremberg. Thirteen bindings containing this bookplate (several versions are known) are recorded, all similarly bound in red or light brown goatskin in a Nuremberg workshop (Christoph Heußler?). Anthony Hobson supposed they might have been commissioned by Philipp Römer (1543-1593), but Phillip's father, Georg Römer (1505-1557), now appears a stronger candidate. A member of the family perhaps commissioned this binding in Italy, or acquired it already bound, and afterwards introduced the family bookplate. Alternatively, the Römer bookplate may have been removed from a different book and placed into this volume in recent times.