Lucifer de Cagliari, Opuscula, Paris, 1568, Parisian primitive fanfare binding with painted armorial for Michele della Torre
Estimate
30,000 - 50,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
LUCIFER DE CAGLIARI. Opuscula. Paris: Michel Sonnius, 1568
AN EARLY FANFARE BINDING WITH PAINTED ARMORIAL FOR MICHELE DELLA TORRE.
Michele Della Torre (1511–1586), for whom this volume was bound, was born in Udine in northeastern Italy. In 1547, he was elected Bishop of Ceneda and he served as the papal nuncio to France from 1547 to 1550 and from 1566 to 1568. He was made a cardinal in 1583, but never officially received the title.
The volume remained in this area during the following centuries, belonging first to Giusto Fontanini (1666-1736; CERL 00028290), with his ownership inscription dated 1687. Fontanini was born in the Friuli and studied at the Jesuit College in Gorizia; he later became an important Italian scholar and bibliophile. It passed from his ownership to the Franciscan monastery of Monte Santo in Gorizia, as indicated by an inscription of a Father Gasparis Beltrani. The monastery was later abandoned by the Franciscans, and the library was transferred to the Franciscan Convent of Castagnevizza, once part of Udine and now in Slovenian territory, in the early nineteenth century.
8vo (178 x 100 mm). Italic type, 32 lines plus headline. collation: aa6 A-Z8 a2: 192 leaves. Woodcut printer's device on title-page, woodcut initials, 14-line early manuscript bibliographical note on lower endleaf. (Some light even browning throughout.)
binding: Parisian armorial binding (173 x 107 mm), c. 1568, cream-coloured kid leather tooled to an early fanfare design, fillets around sides, interlaced strapwork forming central oval, interwoven with spiralling leafy tendrils, azured fleur-de-lys tools, marguerites and dots, in central compartment the della Torre arms of a tower with superimposed crossed sceptres surmounted by a fleur-de-lys, enamelled in their heraldic tinctures against a blue background sprinkled with gold, a bishop's mitre above, flat spine with elaborate gilt tooling, stubs from 2 pairs of ties, edges gilt and gauffered, in a cloth slipcase. (Binding rubbed at extremities, some very small stains.)
provenance: Michele della Torre (1511-1586), Bishop of Ceneda (1547-1586) and papal nuncio to the French Court under Henri II and Charles IX—Giusto Fontanini (1666-1736), archbishop, Italian historian and bibliophile, erased ownership inscription "Justus Fontaninus" to title dated 1687—Franciscan monastery at Monte Santo (Sveta Gora), Gorizia, inscription to upper pastedown "Ex libris ad usu(m) fr(atr)is Pre(dicatori)s Gasparis Beltrani pro coventu Montis S(an)cti", library transferred in the early nineteenth-century to—Franciscan Convent of Castagnevizza, Slovenia, stamp reading "Conventus Castagnavicensis" to title-page—Grace Whitney Hoff (1862-1938), ex-libris, A. Boinet, Bibliothèque de Madame G. Whitney Hoff., Paris, 1933, no. 84 (illustrated)—Nicolas Rauch, Catalogue 4 (1952), no. 154—Charles van der Elst (1904–1982), ex-libris, his sale, Ader Picard Tajan & Claude Guérin with Dominique Courvoisier, Monte Carlo, 13 May 1985, lot 127. acquisition: Purchased in 1989 from Martin Breslauer Inc., New York. references: USTC 116601; G. Hobson, Les Reliures à la fanfare (London 1935), p. 5 ("Première Liste: Le reliures 'à la fanfare' du type primatif", no. 21). exhibited: Société́ des Bibliophiles et Iconophiles de Belgique, Reliures du moyen âge au 1er empire exposées à la Bibliothèque royale du 16 avril au 5 mai 1955 (Brussels [1955]), no. 62 & plate 14
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