Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1767. Montalbani, Discorsi di nobilta, Venice, 1549, contemporary brown morocco gilt by the Fugger Binder for Thomas Mahieu.

Montalbani, Discorsi di nobilta, Venice, 1549, contemporary brown morocco gilt by the Fugger Binder for Thomas Mahieu

Estimate

50,000 - 70,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

MONTALBANI, MARCO. Discorsi di nobilta. Della vita del nobile, et del prencipe, & del regimento di se stesso, della casa & Republica sua. Venice: [Comin da Trino], 1549.

SECOND EDITION OF THE TEXT IN AN ELEGANT VENETIAN BINDING BY THE FUGGER BINDER FOR THOMAS MAHIEU. A very clean copy.

G.D. Hobson deemed this "a most remarkable binding which is so unlike all other Maiolus bindings". He supposed that it was made before 1550, and is thereby among the earliest of Mahieu’s surviving bindings (Maioli, Canevari and others, no. 53 and p. 46). Anthony Hobson identified the binder as the Venetian bookseller he dubbed the "Fugger Binder" on account of his principal client (Renaissance book collecting, p. 258: Appendix 8: "Bindings by the Fugger Binder", no. 103). It is the only Italian binding listed in Hobson’s census of Mahieu's books ("Livres reliés pour Thomas Mahieu" in Bulletin du Bibliophile, 2004, pp. 239-270, no. 54). This binding is also mentioned in Davis Gift I, where it is attributed to the "Venetian Apple bindery" (p. 312), another name for the Fugger Binder.

For further volumes in the present sale bound for Mahieu, see lots 1662 (Doni) and 1843 (Simeoni).

8vo (162 x 102 mm). Roman type, 28 lines plus headline. collation: A-S⁸: 144 leaves. Woodcut initials, a few early manuscript corrections, a very clean copy.

binding: Contemporary Venetian binding (168 x 110 mm) by the Fugger Binder for Thomas Mahieu, olive brown morocco, outer frame composed of a single gilt and numerous blind fillets, inner rectangular panel surrounded by 2 gilt and 4 blind fillets, in the outer corners an ivy leaf, on each side arabesques formed by solid leafy and floral tool, within the panel elaborate arabesque cornerpieces, in centres a double cartouche formed by curved lines and solid arabesques, interspersed with fleurons and stars, containing, on upper cover, "DISCORSI/DI/NOBIL/TA", on lower cover "TH./MAIOLI/ET AMICOR/VM.", spine with 3 full and 4 half bands, stubs from 2 pairs of ties, gilt edges with row of twin dots gauffered around sides, number "1442" in ink towards foot of fore-edge and on lower pastedown, in morocco solander case. (Small neat repairs to spine ends and corners, lower board slightly wormed.)

provenance: Thomas Mahieu (fl. 1549-1580s), principal secretary to Catherine de Medicis from 1572 and Treasurer of France, binding—number "1442" in ink towards foot of fore-edge and on lower pastedown—discovered by Édouard Rahir in a French provincial library and reproduced in Librairie Damascène Morgand, Bulletin mensuel 28, November 1890, item 18952—Marcel Thévenin (1843-1924), his sale, Paris, 4 March 1903, lot 101 (illustrated)—Mortimer L. Schiff (1877-1931), ex-libris, his sale, Sotheby's, pt. 1, 24 March 1938, lot 293 (illustrated), £200 to Maggs Bros.—Maurice Burrus (1882-1959), bookplate, by descent until sold, Paris, part II, 15 November 1971, lot 65 (illustrated)—Breslauer, Catalogue 104, item 26—Claudio De Polo Saibanti, of Trieste, sale, Christie's, London, 26 June 1991, lot 46. acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. references: Edit16 CNCE 62968; USTC 843162; Dennis Rhodes, Silent Printers: Anonymous printing at Venice in the sixteenth century (London 1995), p. 94, no. F15

Estienne, Le herbe, fiori, stirpi [and other works], Venice, 1545, Venetian green morocco by the Fugger Binder for Cardinal Perrenot de Granvelle

Estimate:26,000 - 35,000 GBP

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Estimate:8,000 - 12,000 GBP

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Estimate:8,000 - 10,000 USD

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Estimate:8,000 - 12,000 USD

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Estimate:8,000 - 12,000 GBP

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Estimate:18,000 - 24,000 GBP

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Estimate:18,000 - 25,000 USD

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Estimate:18,000 - 24,000 GBP