Doni, Inferni, Venice, 1553, contemporary red morocco armorial binding, the Laubespine-Colbert copy

Volume 2 (only, of 2), 4to, 210 x 150 mm. Italic type, 29 lines plus headline. collation: A-2F⁴: 116 leaves. In 7 parts, each with large woodcut vignettes on title-page, woodcut portrait of the author on verso of B2 and of the dedicate, Pietro Aretino, on the verso of F1, 22 additional woodcut illustrations, woodcut initials and head- and tailpieces, elaborate woodcut cartouche on final verso, marginal annotation on verso of 2E4. (Slight marginal dampstaining to some parts, small ink stains on verso of A2 very slightly affecting text.)

binding: Contemporary Parisian red morocco (215 x 160 mm) panelled in gilt and blind, fleurons at outer corners, azured tools at inner corners, Laubespine arms in the centre within a wrath with ribbon decoration, flat spine finely decorated with azured tools, gilt title to spine, edges gilt. (Binding very slightly scraped, slightly bumped at extremities, wear to head of spine, joints cracking.)

provenance: Laubespine family, arms on binding—Jean Ballesdens (c. 1600-75), partly erased ownership inscription on title—Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619-83), Minister of France, inscription “Bibliotheca Colbertina” on title-page, sold Gabriel Martin, Bibliotheca Colbertina, seu, Catalogus librorum bibliothecae, Paris, 24 May 1728, 11696 ("Inferni del Doni. Venet. 1553. mar.")—Samuel Weller Singer (1783-1858), inscription dated 1832 on upper endleaf, sale, Sotheby's, 24 May 1860, lot 85, to Jacques-Joseph Techener, Paris, for £4 4s—Léon Techener, Paris, his sale, Maurice Delestre & Émile Paul with Adolphe Labitte, part II , Paris, 10-14 May 1887, lot 565—Sotheby's, London, 18-24 June 1896, lot 1472, £5 17s 6d to—Bernard Quaritch, Catalogue 166: Examples of the art of book-binding and volumes bearing marks of distinguished ownership (London, 1897), item 390—Henry Houssaye (1848-1911), French historian, bookplate on upper pastedown, sale, André Desvouges & Édouard Rahir, Paris, 1 May 1912, lot 152—Sotheby's, 28 February 1966, lot 34, to Marlborough Rare Books—Federico Lobetti Bodoni (b.1946), Turin, bookplate on upper pastedown. acquisition: Purchased in 2011 from Libreria Pregliasco, Turin. references: Harvard Mortimer Italian I, no. 166 (both books); USTC 827618 (complete work); Edit16 CNCE 17693 (complete work)