Sannazaro, Opera omnia, Venice, Biblioteca Aldina, 1570, eighteenth-century vellum over stiff pasteboards

Sannazaro, Jacopo. Iacobi Sannazarii Opera omnia, latine scripta. Venice: Biblioteca Aldina, 1570

Reprint issued by an ancillary branch of the Aldine press, i.e., the firm set up by Aldos’s nephews Bernardo, Girolamo and Andrea Torresano under the name of Bibliotheca Aldina. The competition with the main branch managed by Paolo Manuzio and Aldo the Younger was ruthless. Between 1569 and 1571, almost all the publications by the Manuzio firm were promptly pirated by the Torresanos. At last, Paolo and Aldo the Younger managed to prevent their relatives from using the device of the anchor and dolphin and the misleading motto.

8vo (148 x 94 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: A-N⁸: 104 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device to title-page and verso of last leaf, guide letters in initial spaces. (Intermittent ink stains, especially to A6, spotting and dampstaining, first quire loosening.)

binding: Eighteenth-century vellum over stiff pasteboards (151 x100 mm), horizontal spine title in ink, red edges. (Lightly soiled, cocked.)

provenance: Unidentified owner(s), deleted inscription on title-page and upper endleaf, A6 censored by lining through in ink — Hesketh & Ward, London; Catalogue 26 (London [2000?]), item 40. acquisition: Purchased from Hesketh & Ward, London, 2000. references: UCLA 1080; Renouard 211/20; Edit16 33994; USTC 854705