Pontano, Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, 1505, contemporary Italian (Piedmont?) brown morocco

Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano. Pontani Opera. Vrania, siue de stellis libri quinque. Meteororum liber unus. De hortis Hesperidum libri duo. Lepidina siue postorales [!] pompae septem. Item Meliseus, Maeon Acon. Hendecasyllaborum libri duo. Tumulorum liber unus. Neniae duodecim. Epigrammata duodecim. Quae uero in toto opere habeantur in indice, qui in calce est, licet uidere. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, May 1505

The Liechtenstein family copy.

8vo (161 x 98 mm). Italic and Roman type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a-z⁸ aa-ff⁸ gg¹⁰: 242 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final verso, early marginalia and manuscript foliation. (Scattered foxing, dampstaining to lower margin.)

binding: Contemporary Italian (Piedmont?) brown morocco (170 x 108 mm), blind tooled covers with outer frame of three fillets, inner frame with repeated oak leaves, knotwork tool at corners, center roundel containing "YHS" with knotwork tools above and below, spine with raised bands in four compartments, paper label with manuscript title in first, saltires in others with knotwork tool in interstices, additional endleaves (5 at beginning and end, watermark of a cardinal’s hat), traces of four pairs of ties, author to fore-edge. (Some worming, rubbed with loss, damage to foot of spine with loss, chips to label, some staining.)

provenance: Liechtenstein, family library (Vienna), ex libris — Franz Joseph II, Prince of Liechtenstein (1906-1989). acquisition: Purchased from H.P. Kraus, New York, 1974. references: UCLA 91; Renouard 49/4; Edit16 36164; USTC 850308