Seneca, Tragoediae, Venice, Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1517, French dark brown calf, late 1530s, by Étienne Roffet for François I

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

A splendid example of a binding commissioned for François I's "Italian Library," varying from the norm in having on the spine the King's cipher rather than a horizontal title.

François was fluent in Italian, and his Italian library was composed predominantly of recent Venetian imprints, the majority in Italian with just a few in Latin or Greek, of which about one hundred still survive. The books were bought in Italy but bound in Paris, and this is considered to be the first collection to which the owner's arms were systematically added to the covers. For other books from François's Italian library that were later part of Bibliotheca Brookeriana, please see lots 111 and 415 in The Aldine Collection A–C (New York, 12 October 2023).

8vo (164 x 91 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.

binding: French dark brown calf (171 x 101 mm), late 1530s, by Étienne Roffet, covers panelled with gilt and blind fillets and tooled in gilt and silver, in central panel Francis I's gilt arms for his "Italian Library," gilt fleurs-de-lis at corners, silver leaf and bud at outer corners, traces of two pairs of ties, spine in eight compartments with five full and two half bands, compartments decorated with alternating silver F and gold fleur-de-lis, plain end papers, edges gilt. (Rubbing and restoration to joints and other extremities.) Plexiglas slipcase.

provenance: François I (1494–1547), King of France (r. 1515–1547), armorial supralibros — unidentified owner, early nineteenth-century inscription "1907" in ink on verso front free endpaper — Richard Heber (1773–1833); his sale, R. H. Evans, London, 23 March–14 April 1835, lot 3313; purchased by — Henry G. Bohn, London (£8 18s 6d) — possibly William Beckford (1760–1844) — Alexander Douglas, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767–1852); his sale, Sotheby's London, London, 2–13 July 1883, lot 1795; purchased by — Bernard Quaritch, London (£81) — Henri Bordes (1841–1911), morocco label; Maurice Delestre & Charles Porquet, Catalogue de manuscrits sur vélin, livres rares et précieux … provenant de la bibliothèque d'un amateur, Paris, 10 June 1899, lot 29; purchased by — unidentified owner (FF 2700) — Librairie Damascène Morgand, Livres imprimés et manuscrits, Mai 1900 (Paris, 1900), item 351 (FF 4000) — André Langlois (1873–1975), morocco label. acquisition: Purchased from Librairie Thomas-Scheler, Paris, 1998. references: UCLA 155; Adams S903; Cataldi Palau 24; Edit16 37581; Grolier/Aldus 65; Renouard 80/4; USTC 855885; cf. Arthur Rau, "André Langlois (Contemporary Collectors XIII)," in The Book Collector 6 (1957):129–143 (this book cited, p. 132) – T. Kimball Brooker, "Bindings Commissioned for Francis I's 'Italian Library' with Horizontal Spine Titles dating from the late 1530s to 1540," in Bulletin du Bibliophile (1997): 33–91