Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1715. Giovio, Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium, Basel, 1575, contemporary German red calf gilt, attractive hand-colouring.

Giovio, Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium, Basel, 1575, contemporary German red calf gilt, attractive hand-colouring

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

GIOVIO, PAOLO. Elogia Virorum bellica virtue illustrium, septem libris iam olim ab Authore comprehensa. Basel: Pietro Parna for Heinrich Petri, 1575


FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION, ALL WOODCUTS ATTRACTIVELY HAND-COLOURED, IN A RICHLY GILT CONTEMPORARY RED CALF BINDING.


The Giovio Series was a collection of 484 portraits assembled by the historian and churchman Paolo Giovio and housed in his home town of Como. The pictures were mostly made from life or copied from versions considered as lifelike as possible (though the portrait of Henry VIII certainly lacks verisimilitude). The collection covered men of letters, rulers and statesmen, and even a few women. Giovio then composed volumes of short biographies based on the portraits; this volume of military figures was first published in 1551 (though without the portraits) and its geographical spread reaches from Scotland to Ethiopia, including many Ottoman and Persian rulers as well as numerous Italians. 


This volume contains 129 woodcut portraits within elaborate decorative borders and 10 empty frames for portraits, all with contemporary hand-colouring heightened with gold and silver.


This binding is decorated with large blocks, possibly associating it with a contemporary Genevan workshop.


Sotheby's is grateful to Professor Mirjam M. Foot for her assistance in researching this binding.

Folio (350 x 230 mm). Roman type, 46 lines plus headline. collation: πa4 a-z6 Aa-Ll6: 208 leaves (final leaf blank). Title within illustrated woodcut border, numerous historiated woodcut initials, full-page woodcut and epitaph of Giovio, 129 woodcut portraits within decorative borders, 10 empty frames for portraits, all with contemporary hand-colouring heightened with gold and silver, some coarse painting in brown to coat of arms and overpainting unclothed figures in title border, portrait in the same hand within empty frame on x4. (Some light spotting throughout, metal of initials oxidised, 20 mm stain to m6r with text still legible, marginal ink stain and 25 mm ink stain to v5v slightly affecting text, repaired marginal tears to f3 and Gg4, index leaves Ll2-5 likely inserted from another copy.)


binding: Contemporary red calf binding (365 x 250 mm), possibly Genevan, elaborately gilt, covers with large central arabesque panel stamp and borders composed of large blocks, spine with 5 bands, head and tail compartments with gilt arabesque, later morocco title label in second compartment, others with a gilt globe, edges gilt and gauffered to a pattern of tendrils and flowers picked out in red, manuscript title on fore-edge, traces of 2 pairs of green silk ties. (Binding rubbed and slightly scraped, boards bowed, gilt decoration faded in parts, some repairs and repainting, lacking ties.)


provenance: Johann Graf von Manderscheid-Blankenheim (1538-1592), canon at Cologne Cathedral and bishop of Strassburg, full-page illuminated ex-libris on endleaf facing title—Jesuit College of Molsheim (Alsace, near Strassburg), inscription on title-page, "Collegij societatis Jesu Molshemij", founded in 1580 by von Manderscheid, and dissolved in 1765—Fürstlich Hohenzollernsche Hofbibliothek, Sigmaringen, nineteenth-century library stamp on title-page—Sotheby's, London, 20 May 2014, lot 11. acquisition: Purchased in 2018 from Stéphane Clavreuil, London. references: USTC 683306; La vita e i tempi di Pietro Perna (2002), catalogue no. 250

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