Seneca, Tragoediae, Venice, Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1517, Roman red goatskin, late 1520s/early 1530s

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Scenecae [!] Tragoediae. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, October 1517

A third copy of the first issue of the only Aldine edition of Seneca, from the Heber library and handsomely bound in near-contemporary Roman red goatskin.

8vo (162 x 90 mm). Italic type, 30 Lines plus headline. collation: a⁴ b–z⁸ A–D⁸ E⁴: 216 foliated leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and E4v, two- to seven-line initial space with guide letters. (A few small wormholes to lower margin of last three leaves, some scattered light marginal foxing.)

binding: Roman red goatskin (169 x 102 mm), late 1520s/early 1530s, covers panelled with gilt and bind fillets, central panel with a column of four gilt circles containing a star, spine in eight compartments with three full and four half bands, bands gilt with rules or cross-hatches, title gilt vertically down the second through fourth compartments (later gilt label in first), traces of two pairs of green fabric ties, plain endpapers, edges gilt and gauffered. (Extremities rubbed, front joint cracked, spine darkened.) Plexiglas slipcase.

provenance: Richard Heber (1773–1833), stamp on front free endpaper; his sale, Sotheby's London, 11–26 April 1836, lot 2611; purchased by — Thomas Thorpe, London (£3 18s) — F.S. Ellis, London; his sale, Sotheby's London, 16 November 1885, lot 2699; purchased by — Bernard Quaritch, London (£5 15s); A General Catalogue of Books Offered to the Public at the Affixed Prices (London, 1887), VI, item 36859 (£7 15s) — unidentified owner, twentieth-century ink label/pressmark "DEK. |

a. 2021." acquisition: Purchased from Mountain House Books, Nevada City, 1999. references: UCLA 155; Adams S903; Cataldi Palau 24; Edit16 37581; Grolier/Aldus 65; Renouard 80/4; USTC 855885