Pontano, Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1513, Parisian olive morocco by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier, ca. 1540

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

A third copy of the 1513 edition of Pontano's Opera, illuminated and bound for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard and subsequently owned by de Thou and Renouard. The simple yet elegant bindings favored by Grolier in the 1540s were formerly attributed to Claude de Picques, but the current consensus—following the researches of Annie Parent- Charon ("Nouveaux documents sur les relieurs parisiens du XVIe siècle," in Revue française d'histoire du livre, 1982, p. 389- 408) and Anthony Hobson (Humanists and Bookbinders, pp. 267-271)—is that they are the product of the shop of Jean Picard, Torresano's Parisian representative of the Aldine Press. Picard bound as many as two hundred volumes (including more than one hundred Aldine imprints) for Grolier prior to his bankruptcy in 1547, after which Grolier transferred his patronage to Gomar Estienne.

This volume is further enhanced by the mounting on the recto of the first front flyleaf of a raised cameo portrait of Pontano cut from Neapolitan brown goatskin binding, ca. 1505. The medallion portrait (82 mm diameter) depicts the author bald and bare-shouldered, with lettering around the circumference: IOANNES IOVIANVS PONTANVS. The image was taken from the obverse of a medal cast by Adriano Fiorentino (Adriano di Giovanni de’ Maestri), a sculptor and bronze founder who worked in Naples from about 1488 until 1495. Five volumes of various works by Pontano are recorded in contemporary Neapolitan bindings that incorporate this medallion portrait. The bindings have been attributed to Masone di Maio and were likely commissioned by the scholar and editor of Pontano's poetry, Pietro Summonte (1463–1526). Bibliotheca Brookeriana included the only one of these five books outside Italy: Hoc in volumine opera haec continentur. Parthenopei libri duo (Naples: Sigismondo Mayr, 1505); this was sold in the first Brooker auction, Magnificent Books and Bindings, 11 October 2023, lot 75 (cf. De Marinis, La Legatura in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI [Florence, 1960], no. 260 & Pl. 44.).

8vo (169 x 99 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. Illuminated and decorated in Paris for Jean Grolier: printer's devices illuminated in blue with gilt penwork decoration, guide-letters supplied in liquid gold, most with further red penwork.

binding: Parisian olive morocco over thin boards (175 x 103 mm) by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier, ca. 1540, richly gold-tooled, covers paneled with border of double gilt fillets and frame of two pairs of interlocking gilt fillets, the outer set with concave curvilinear corners, gilt fleur-de-lis at corners between border and frame, central undulating lozenge-cartouche composedof foliate tooling at top and bottom and central double gilt quatrefoil, title gilt-lettered within the upper cartouche, Grolier’s personal motto (Portio mea Domine sit in terra viventium) within the lower, at foot of upper cover between the border and frame IO. GROLIERII ET AMICORVM, at foot of lower cover RENOUARD added in first half of the nineteenth century, spine simply gilt ruled in eight compartments with five full and two half bands, cipher of J. A. de Thou & Marie Barbançon ("I.A.M." interlaced) added to central six compartments between 1587–1602, vellum endleaves, additional contemporary paper flyleaves at front and back, gilt edges. (Rear joint cracking with minor chipping, some wear and minor repair to extremities.)

provenance: Jean Grolier de Servières, vicomte d’Aguisy (1489?-1565), supralibros, his name and motto on covers — Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553–1617), supralibros, cipher "I.A.M" of J.A. de Thou and his first wife, Marie Barbançon-Cany (m. 1587, d. 1601), on spine, former's signature twice on flyleaves; presumably Pierre Dupuy, Catalogus bibliothecae Thuanae, Paris, 7 April 1680, II, p.286 "Jo. Joviniani Pontani opera poëtica. 8°. Venet. Aldus. 1613 [sic]" — Jean-Jacques Charron, marquis de Ménars (1643–1718) — Armand Gaston Maximilien, Cardinal, prince de Rohan (1674–1749), who purchased Charron's library in 1706 — Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise (1715–1787), shelfmark "3.C.P.T.3.2.49" on pastedown; Charles-Guillaume Leclerc, Catalogue des livres, imprimés et manuscrits, de la bibliothèque de feu monseigneur le prince de Soubise, maréchal de France, Paris, 12 January–20 February 1789, lot 4909 (part); purchased by — unidentified owner (31 fr 12 s. per Le Roux de Lincy) — unidentified owner, note on upper pastedown "ac cl" (? a bookseller's price code) — Antoine-Augustin Renouard (1765–1853), supralibros, "Renouard" in gilt at bottom of lower cover, inventory number "No. 1422+" and signature on verso of second front flyleaf; Renouard, Catalogue de la bibliothèque d’un amateur avec notes bibliographiques, critiques, et littéraires (Paris, 1819), II, p.327 — Archibald Acheson, 3^rd Earl of Gosford (1806–1864), inscribed "Acheson 1836" on first front flyleaf; Maurice Delestre & Charles Porquet, Catalogue de livres rares et précieux, la plupart reliés en maroquin ancien avec armoiries, provenant de la bibliothèque d'un amateur anglais, Paris, 1–6 May 1882, lot 146; purchased by — unidentified owner (FF 2450) — James Toovey (1814–1893), London, morocco booklabel — Librairie Damascène Morgand, Bulletin mensuel, No. 41, Mai 1897 (Paris, 1897), item 29838 (FF 3000) —Rose-Anne Anna (née Wodianer) Porgès (1854–1937) — Les livres de Madame J[ules] P[orgès]: Manuscrits, livres de provenance historique, livres illustrés du XVIIIe siècle, livres anciens et modernes (Paris, 1906), no. 137 (her books dispersed by private treaty) — Laurin Guilloux Buffetaud Tailleur & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Livres anciens & modernes, Paris, 23 March 1987, lot 12. acquisition: Purchased at Laurin Guilloux Buffetaud Tailleur via Martin Breslauer Inc. references: UCLA 109; Adams P1858; Aldo Manuzio Tipografo 119; Edit16 37456; Renouard 63/7; USTC 850318; for the binding: Austin 431; Austin, "The Library of Jean Grolier: A Few Additions," in Festschrift Otto Schäfer zum 75 Geburtstag, ed. Manfred von Arnim (Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 437–450 (p. 441)