Philostratus, Vita Apollonii Tyanei, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, February 1502 (March 1501) [but 1504], Parisian brown morocco by Gomar Estienne for Jean Grolier, late 1540s

Philostratus, Flavius. Philostratou Eis ton Apolloniou tou Tyaneos bion biblia octo. Eusebiou Kaisareias tou Pamphilou antirrhetikos pros ta Hierokleous, Apollonion ton Tuanea toi soteri Christoi paraballontes. Philostrati de vita Apollonii Tyanei libri octo. Idem libri Latini interprete A: Rinuccino Florentino. Eusebius contra Hieroclem qui Tyaneum Christo conferre conatus fuerit. Idem latinus interprete Zenobio Acciolo florentino ordinis praedicatorum. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, February 1502 (March 1501) [but 1504]

A second, tall copy of the editiones principes of Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana and Eusebius’s condemnation of Lover of Truth by Sossianus Hierocles, bound for Jean Grolier by Gomar Estienne. A native of Brabant, Estienne held the office of royal bookbinder from about November 1547 until about May 1555, working intensively at Fontainebleau for the royal library until mid-1552 and thereafter from an atelier in Paris, for non-royal collectors such as Jean Grolier, Thomas Mahieu, Marc Laurin, and the Cardinal de Lorraine.

A little noticed, if not entirely unrecorded, Grolier binding, not in Gabriel Austin, The Library of Jean Grolier: A Preliminary Catalogue (New York 1971).

Super-Chancery folio (319 x 208 mm). Greek and Roman types, 55 (Greek) or 57 (Latin) lines plus headline. collation: a– g⁸ h¹⁰ Apoll.^{8 2}a–h⁸ i10: 148 leaves (h10 blank; Latin text foliated). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and i10v, two- to eleven-line initial spaces with guide letters. In this copy, as sometimes, quire Apoll. is bound between quires h and i. (Title- page extended, some minor scattered marginal foxing and dampstaining.)

binding: Parisian brown morocco (324 x 216 mm), late 1540s, by Gomar Estienne, gilt French-fillet border, IO. GROLIERII ET AMICORVM. gilt-lettered at foot of upper cover between the two outer fillets, covers gilt with interlacing strapwork, freely executed with curving double gilt fillets, gilt floral tools at corners of inner and outer shaped rectangles, sprays of floral and foliate tools on tendrils of single curvilinear rules at the four sides just inside the French fillet, covers with a central cartouche, the front gilt-lettered with author and title, the lower with Grolier’s personal motto (Portio mea Domine sit in terra viventium), smooth spine closely gilt with a small curved tool to a fish-scale pattern, traces of two pairs of green silk ties, plain endpapers, one additional vellum and three paper flyleaves at front and back, gilt edges. (Joints and pastedowns restored.) Green morocco folding-case, velvet lined.

provenance: Jean Grolier de Servières, vicomte d'Aguisy (1489?–1565), supralibros, his name and motto on covers — Henri Bonaventure Bordes (1842-1911), Bordeaux, morocco booklabel — Dominique Courvoisier, Paris, morocco booklabel. acquisition: Purchased from Librairie Benoît Forgeot, Paris, 2017. references: UCLA 82; Adams P1067; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 85; Edit16 36113; Renouard 26/2; USTC 848072