Petrarca, Il Petrarcha, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, August 1514, printed on vellum, late seventeenth/early eighteenth calf, possibly English

Petrarca, Francesco. Il Petrarcha. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, August 1514

A second copy of the second Aldine Petrarch, printed on vellum. This copy, so far as can be determined with its lacunae, is from state A.

Despite the poor sales of the 1501 edition, the Petrarch is evidently the only one of Aldo's vernacular publications to be issued twice during his lifetime. Aldo reordered the poems for this edition so that the poems on the death of Laura would begin with "Oimé il bel viso" (n7r).

However, Renouard noted that there were two states to the 1514 edition, which Brian Richardson has fully examined. Richardson's state A has quire y containing the "missing" capitolo "Nel cor pien" [as here] and quire B ("Da poi che morte" and "Pien d'infinita", the extra canzone and four sonnets, errata and printer's device), and state B has quire y starting with "Da poi che morte" (followed by a blank leaf) and contains quires B-C8 (Aldus's letter, "Nel cor pien", the extra canzone and fourteen sonnets, errata and printer's device). Richardson concludes that state A is the earlier one, particularly as state B was followed for the next Aldine reprint of 1521. Of the sixteen copies he examined, state A occurred in just two and both were printed on vellum; the cancellanda of y and B are found only in vellum copies, leading Richardson to suppose the vellum copies "were the first to be printed, and that a few of them had already been sent out to friends or patrons before the cancellantia could be inserted in them." Additionally, Richardson notes that some copies do not contain the printed dedication starting on a1v; in this copy, a1v is blank.

In his study of the blind printing in Aldine octavos printed on vellum, Randall McLeod has concluded that the second state of this edition was printed later, perhaps in 1515, but without a reset colophon, as it contains blind printing from the January 1515 Lucretius (see also Alba Page).

Fifteen copies of the 1501 Aldine Petrarch were reputedly printed on vellum; based on a census of surviving vellum copies of the 1514 imprint, a similar number was printed of the second edition. We have traced the following eight vellum copies, in addition to the present: Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château, XIV D 7 (formerly William Beckford); British Library, C.4.d.6. (formerly Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode); Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, D'Elci 1086; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Vélins-2143 (possibly formerly Guglielmo Bruto Icilio Tirnoleone, Count Libri [sold, Commandeur & P. Jannet, Catalogue de la bibliothèque de M. L****, Paris, 28 June-4 August 1847, lot 666], or Francesco Reina); the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth House; Harvard University, Houghton Library, *IC P447C 1514; University of Texas, Harry Ransom Research Center, Uzielli 101 (formerly Edward Clive Herbert, 2nd Earl Powis); Newberry Library, Chicago, Case Y 712 .P4051.

In addition, a number of copies cited by Renouard and Van Praet—and/or that had appeared at auction in the nineteenth-century—cannot currently be reliably located, e.g., the Gaetano Poggioli-Philip Augustus Hanrott copy sold, respectively, at R. H. Evans, 26–30 June 1828, lot 404, and 20 February–3 March 1834, lot 1305; and the Masterman Sykes-Bishop Samuel Butler copy, sold, respectively, at R. H. Evans, 28 May-3 June 1824, lot 713, and Christie’s, 1-10 June 1840, lot 1483. The Antonio Marsand copy, cited by Van Praet and Renouard, was presumably lost in a fire in the Louvre, May 1871.

8vo (151 x 88 mm). Printed on vellum, italic type, 29 lines plus headline. collation: a–z⁸ A–B⁸: 183 (of 200) foliated leaves (lacking a2–7 [supplied in facsimile on paper leaves], s7–8 [a blank and the section title for Trionfi], A8–B8 [the extra poems and errata]; z8, blank). Two- and three-line initial spaces with guide letters, the initials supplied in gold on various color fields. Title enclosed within a purple ink banner, pen-and-ink illustration of a funerary urn with portraits of Petrarch and Laura at head of a leaf containing a sonnet (by Lodovico Domenichi) on the ashes of Petrarch and Laura (both taken from the 1543 Giolito edition by Vellutello), followed by manuscript facsimile of the six lacking leaves (a2–7), contemporary Italian illumination on n7 (start of Sonetti et canzoni in morte di Madonna Laura), with motifs of death, and on t1. (Title-page and final page soiled, some scattered soiling and natural vellum discoloration, a few words on h8v somewhat effaced, m2, 3 transposed, illumination on n7 rubbed, illumination on t1 essentially rubbed away.)

binding: Late seventeenth/early eighteenth-century calf, possibly English (161 x 101 mm) with double gilt fillet border, spine gilt in six compartments with floral tools, second with red morocco label lettered with author's name, third lettered directly with printer and date, marbled endpapers, red edges. (Extremities rather rubbed.)

provenance: Unidentified owner, commissioner of the illumination — unidentified owner, commissioner of the facsimile text

— unidentified owner, shelfmark, or price, "M. 5. 10" on front flyleaf (appears contemporary with the supplied manuscript text) — John Alexander Hope (1831–1873), 6^th Earl of Hopetoun, armorial bookplate; by descent to — John Adrian Louis Hope, 7^th Earl and subsequently 1^st Marquess of Linlithgow (1860–1908); Sotheby's London, 25–28 February 1889, lot 720; purchased by — Bernard Quaritch, London (£4 4s); Rough List 202: Catalogue of Spanish & Portuguese and also of Italian literature (London, 1900), item 959 (£6) — Henry John Beresford Clements (1869–1940), armorial bookplate — Sotheby's London, 28 May 2015, lot 64. acquisition: Purchased at Sotheby's via Halwas. references: UCLA 125; Adams P790; Aldo Manuzio Tipografo 127; Edit16 55881; Grolier/Aldus 49; Renouard 68/6; USTC 847800; Van Praet, Catalogue de livres imprimés sur vélin, qui se trouvent dans des bibliothèques tant publiques que particulières II:180 & IV:180; cf. Richardson, "The Two Versions of the 'Appendix Aldina' of 1514," in The Library 13 (1991): 115–125; Page, "The Sewers of Paris [What Lies Beneath in the Second Aldine Petrarch, 1514]," in The Chicago Review 59, no. 1/2 (2014–2015): p. 1–10, 11; McLeod, with Perry, “The Invisible Book,” in New College Notes 15 (2021): 1–116