Sannazaro, L'Arcadie, Paris, 1544, Parisian brown morocco gilt, Laubespine copy

8vo (154 x 102 mm). Italic type, 26 lines plus headline. collation: A-R⁸ (R8 blank): 136 leaves.

binding: Parisian olive green morocco armorial binding (154 x 102 mm), made for a member of the Laubespine family (possibly by the Maioli Aesop Binder), concentric frames of blind and gilt fillets with gilt fleurons at corners, arms in centre in an oval [Olivier 1553], spine with gilt lettering and foliate stamps in compartments, gilt edges. (2 3/4 x 1 inch section of upper board and 2 1/2 x 1 1/4 inch section of lower board neatly supplied.) 

provenance: Laubespine family, arms on binding (possibly François de Laubespine, d. c. 1572, or his brother Claude II, d. 1567)—Barberini Colonna di Sciarra library, mid-eighteenth-century red circular stamp on title-page and verso of final text leaf—traces of removed bookplate—Sotheby's, London, 19-21 March 1896, lot 763, to J. & J. Leighton, London—Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), his Catalogo dei libri posseduti (London [i.e. Rome] 1899), no. 1996, and H. W. Davies, Catalogue of a collection of early French books in the collection of C. Fairfax Murray (London, 1910), item no. 502, with printed tag numbered 502 on upper pastedown. acquisition: Purchased in 1999 from Librairie Paul Jammes, Paris. references: BP 16 111871; USTC 14863