Pontano, Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1513, Roman (Milanese?) marbled brown goatskin, 1530s

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 & Andrea Torresano, 1513

An exceptionally fresh fourth copy of the second, 1513, Aldine Pontano, essentially a reprint of Aldo's 1505 edition, expanded by five additional epigrams and eighteen new poems. This copy is bound in marbled goatskin. In Apollo and Pegasus (1975), Anthony Hobson writes of two binding innovations of the first half of the sixteenth century: the use of white leather, calf or kid, in France, and mottled goatskin in Italy. "There can be little doubt of Italian priority with the second novelty, mottled morocco. This is used for one of Apollonio Filareto's bindings, which cannot be later than 1547 when the unfortunate owner lost his freedom and his books in Piacenza. The process was presumably the one known to Girolamo Cardano of Pavia, who names the mottling agent as the juice of wild beet. Variegated morocco does not appear to have been known in Paris until about 1550" (p. 79).

8vo (162 x 100 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a–z⁸ aa–ii⁸: 256 foliated leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and ii8v, two-, three-, and six-line initial spaces with guide letters.

binding: Roman (Milanese?) brown goatskin (167 x 112 mm) mottled with a black vegetable dye, 1530s, covers with a geometric strapwork frame formed by a pair of interlacing gilt fillets, tiny leaf tool at inner corners, central roundel on front cover lettered with author and title, roundel on rear cover gilt with dots and tiny "clover" tool with four larger foliate tools forming a central quatrefoil, spine in eight compartments with three full and four half bands, plain endpapers, edges gilt and gauffered to a knotwork design, author and title inked on lower edge, traces of four pairs of fabric ties. (Some rubbing and minor scrapes, three very small chips to spine, minor touches of repair.)

provenance: "10 . 38," Roman bookseller's mark (?) under Aldine device — Giorgio Trivulzio (1512–1583), inscription on title- page — Étienne Audin de Rians, Florence; Catalogue des éditions Aldines qui se trouvent chez Étienne Audin libraire (Florence, 1827), item 53 — Carlo Alberto Chiesa, Milan (1926–1998) — undesignated consignor; A Fine Collection of Books Printed by Aldus Manutius and his Successors at Venice … Property of a Gentleman, Christie's London, 3 May 1995, lot 59 (realised £12,100). acquisition: Purchased at Christie's via Martin Breslauer Inc. references: UCLA 109; Adams P1858; Aldo Manuzio Tipografo 119; Edit16 37456; Renouard 63/7; USTC 850318