Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Epistolarum, Lyon, Antoine Blanchard for Vincent de Portonariis, 1527, eighteenth-century limp vellum

Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Gaius. C. Plinii secundi. Novocomensis, Epistolarum libri x. Panegyricus Traiano principi dictus. De viris illustribus in re militari, et in administranda rep. Item Suetonij Tranquilli de claris grammaticis & rhetoribus. Iulii obsequentis Prodigiorum liber. Indices duo … Lyon: Antoine Blanchard for Vincent de Portonariis, 1527

The last of the Lyonese Aldine counterfeits.

8vo (158 x 104 mm). Italic and Roman type, 31 lines plus headline. collation: a-z⁸ A-F⁸ (lacking F8, a blank): 231 (of 232) leaves. Woodcut printer's device on title-page, title printed in red and black, woodcut historiated initials, early marginalia. (Title soiled, staining and soiling, g-h⁸ misbound margins of final gatherings a bit frayed.)

binding: Eighteenth-century limp vellum (158 x 110 mm), traces of two pairs of ties, flat spine with manuscript title, endleaves from eighteenth-century Spanish legal text, edges stained red. (Some soiling and buckling.)

provenance: Possibly Sotheby's London, 27 July 1981, lot 124. acquisition: Purchased from Marlborough Rare Books, London, 1986. references: UCLA 1176 (not in collection); Renouard 316/64; not in Shaw; Baudrier, V, 430 (title reproduced p. 429); FB 83289; USTC 145844