Guicciardini, L'historia d'Italia, Florence, 1561, contemporary French calf gilt

2 volumes, 8vo (172 x 110 mm). Roman type, 40 lines plus headline. collation: (π)A⁸ A–4M⁸: 646 leaves. Title within architectural woodcut border, woodcut portrait of the author, woodcut initials, manuscript index in an early modern hand to endleaves. (A few leaves with either inkblot or staining.)

binding: Contemporary French brown calf (178 x 117 mm), gilt fillet around sides, gilt fleuron in centre of both covers, spine with 4 raised bands and 2 half bands, gilt fleurons in compartments, paper label, edges gilt and gauffered in floral design, fifteenth-century manuscript on vellum as binding support. (Spine ends repaired, lacks ties.)

provenance: Unidentified early modern ownership inscription on final leaf of second volume—late-seventeenth-century ownership inscription of Joseph Arrowsmith (plausibly the author of the 1673 Restoration satire The Reformation)—Andrew Fletcher (1655-1716), of Saltoun (author, politician, and ardent opponent of the 1707 Act of Union), by descent to—John Theodore Talbot Fletcher (1903–1995), sale, Sotheby’s, 21-23 November 1966, lot 316, to Maggs Bros. acquisition: Purchased in 1983 from Trebizond Rare Books, New York. references: Edit16 CNCE 22305; USTC 835390