Pico della Mirandola, Liber de imaginatione, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, April 1501, Parisian green morocco (signed Duru 1847)

Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni Francesco. Ioannis Francisci Pici Liber de imaginatione. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, April 1501

The Firmin-Didot-Clark copy of the rare first edition.

De imaginatione asserts that men are not rational animals, but are instead slaves of their own consciousness. Aldo was closely connected to the author's uncle Giovanni Pico the elder. He executed the work as the typographical pairing with Bembo's De aetna (see lot 176, Bibliotheca Brookeriana: The Aldine Collection A-C, 12 October 2023). The present copy is complete with Aldo's preface to his former student Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi, an important patron of the Aldine press, and Pico’s to the Emperor Maximilian.

Super-Chancery 4to (211 x 150 mm). Roman type, 22 lines. collation: *⁴ A-D⁸ E⁴ (E4 a blank): 40 leaves. (Washed, scattered foxing, restoration to E4.)

binding: Parisian green morocco (215 x 155 mm), signed Duru 1847, spine with raised bands in six compartments, second and third gilt-lettered, all edges gilt, inner dentelles gilt, marbled endpapers. (Extremities a bit rubbed.)

provenance: Ambroise Firmin-Didot (1790-1876), ex libris; his sale, Maurice Delestre & Adolphe Labitte, Paris, 12-17 June 1882, lot 203 — booklabel with monogram ("B.E.H.") to front free endpaper — Charles W. Clark (1871-1933), The Library of Charles W. Clark (San Francisco 1922), VII, p. 101 — Rosenbach Company, Philadelphia. acquisition: Purchased from John Fleming, New York, 1972. references: UCLA 40; Renouard 32/11; Edit16 53621; USTC 848425