Petrarca, Il Petrarca, Venice, Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Heirs of Andrea Torresano, June 1533, retrospective brown morocco in contemporary Parisian style

Petrarca, Francesco. Il Petrarca. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Heirs of Andrea Torresano, June 1533

The fourth Aldine edition of Petrarch, edited by Paulus Manutius and dedicated by him to the humanist scholar and bibliophile Giovanni Bonifacio, Duke of Oria. This is one of the first works to be printed by Paulus Manutius after a hiatus in printing following the death of Aldo's father-in-law, Andrea Torresani in 1529.

8vo (163 x 96 mm). Italic type, 29 lines plus headline. collation: a–z⁸ A–E⁸ F⁴: 228 foliated leaves (z8, B5, C5 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and C4v, two- and three-line initial spaces with guide letters. (Title-page restored at inner margin, a very little scattered soiling and staining.)

binding: Late nineteenth-century retrospective brown morocco in contemporary Parisian style (171 x 108 mm), covers elaborately gilt to an interlacing fanfare design, freehand gougework in an interlacing design of tendrils, fleurons, and leafy forms with a pointillé ground, spine gilt in five compartments, title gilt-lettered in second compartment, gilt crosshatching in others, plain endpapers, gilt edges. (Spine a bit worn with several small wormholes and damaged, extremities slightly rubbed.)

provenance: Unidentified owner, initials G.C.S.P. on title-page (effaced) —"un Bibliofilo Romano," unidentified owner; Sotheby's Florence, 22 October 1970, lot 233 (lots 203–470 designated as "La Raccolta di un Bibliofilo Romano"). acquisition: Purchased at Sotheby's via Quaritch. references: UCLA 261; Adams P802; Cataldi Palau 125; Edit16 27211; Renouard 108/5; USTC 847840