Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1792. Petrarca, Il Petrarcha con l'espositione di Alessandro Vellutello, Venice, 1532, dark brown morocco gilt, probably by the Pflug & Ebeleben Binder.

Petrarca, Il Petrarcha con l'espositione di Alessandro Vellutello, Venice, 1532, dark brown morocco gilt, probably by the Pflug & Ebeleben Binder

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

PETRARCA, FRANCESCO. Il Petrarcha con l'espositione d'Alessandro Vellutello e con piu utili cose in diversi luoghi di quella novissimamente da lui aggiunte. Venice: Bernardino Vitali, November 1532

A FINE BOLOGNESE BINDING LIKELY BY THE PFLUG & EBELEBEN BINDER, probably for a student at the university, who has chosen to have its upper cover lettered "Non a caso e virtute" and lower cover "quest opere son frali" (from Petrarch's Canzoniere, sonnets LXIV and LXXXIII). The volume is not mentioned in Hobson’s discussions of this binding shop, but can be attributed on the strength of the ivy tool wreath and corner fleurons (see Breslauer).

The book belonged much later to Gabriele d’Annunzio (1863-1938), the poet and novelist said to have inspired Mussolini's fascism, who presented it to Comte Robert Montesquiou (1855-1921), Symbolist poet, painter, art collector and good friend of Marcel Proust: "a Roberto di Monteschiū - in memoria del Giorno sacro all nostra fede. XIII decembre MCMX Gabriele d'Annunzio".

8vo (162 x 102 mm). Italic type in columns, 52 lines plus headline. collation: A1-3 A6-8 B-Z⁸ a-e⁸ f¹² (final leaf blank): 234 leaves (only, of 236; lacking A4-5). Initial spaces with printed guides, a few early marginal annotations. (Lacking two leaves from the first quire including double-page woodcut map, excised ownership inscription to upper margin of title-page (12 x 80 mm), some marginal dampstaining and very minor worming throughout.)

binding: Bolognese dark brown morocco (167 x 107 mm) by the Pflug & Ebeleben binder, c. 1545, profusely gilt to a design of swirling solid arabesque tools, double gilt fillet frame, central cartouche formed by interlocking ivy leaves containing "NON A CASO E VIRTVTE" on upper cover and "QVEST OPERE SON FRALI" on lower cover, spine with 3 full and 4 half bands, stubs from 4 pairs of ties, edges gilt and gauffered, in a blue morocco box by L. Gruel, c. 1885. (Spine ends and corners neatly repaired, lacking ties.)

provenance: Motto of original owner on binding—early inscription excised from title-page—Jacques-Charles Brunet (1780-1876), his sale, Paris, 20 April 1868, lot 355—Léon Gruel (1841-1924), binding historian, reproduced in his Manuel (1887), p. 21—Librairie Damascène Morgand, Bulletin mensuel - Nouvelle série, no. 4, Novembre 1905 (Paris 1905), item 487—Gabriele d’Annunzio (1863-1938), poet, novelist and political leader, ex-libris to upper pastedown, his gift inscription dated 1910 to—Comte Robert Montesquiou (1855-1921), friend of Proust—Martin Breslauer Inc, Catalogue 110, item 33—Christie's, London, 3 April 1996, lot 177. acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. references: USTC 847839; Edit16 CNCE 38021; De Marinis II, no. 1329; Federico & Livio Macchi, Atlante della legatura italiana: Il Rinascimento (XV-XVI secolo) (Milan, 2007), pp.42-43, Tav. 10

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Estimate:3,000 - 5,000 GBP