Sophocles, Tragodiai, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, 1502, Bolognese brown goatskin, ca. 1520, by the German Students' Binder

Sophocles. Sophocleous Tragodiai hepta metexegeseon [Greek]. Sophoclis Tragaediae septem cum commentariis. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, August 1502

A fifth copy of the editio princeps of Sophocles, bound for Georg von Logau. Logau was described in a "Notabilia" blog post by Robin Halwas as one of a number of "Germans who chose to continue their education at the Italian universities and became there patrons of bookbindings, sending their schoolbooks to be specially bound in the local shops. The Silesian nobleman Georg von Logau (Logus), who in the years 1519–1538 attended the universities of Bologna, Rome, Padua, and Ferrara, is known by three such bindings, two acquired by him in Bologna and the other in Venice. They compare favourably with the luxurious bindings commissioned by Logau’s better-known contemporaries, the students Nikolaus Ebeleben, Damian Pflug, and Heinrich Castell, and suggest a bibliophile of equally refined taste."

The binding on one of Logau's books now in the Leipzig Stadtbibliothek—Anthologia Graeca Planudea [Greek], ed. Janus Lascaris (Florence: Laurentius (Francisci) de Alopa, Venetus, 11 August 1494); ISTC ia00765000—"was attributed by Ilse Schunke to an anonymous Bolognese shop she designated the 'Spiegel-Meister' on account of the work it executed for Dietrich (Theodor) von Spiegel, who matriculated at Bologna in 1524. Anthony Hobson renamed the shop the 'German Students’ Binder' and established that it was active from about 1520 until the mid-1530s, when its materials and clients were taken over by a shop he named the 'Pflug and Ebeleben Binder.' The bindings these two shops executed for German students typically showed the book’s title in the centre of the upper cover, and the owner’s name and often a date in the same place on the lower cover" (https://www.robinhalwas.com/n74-georg-von-logau-ca-1500-1553).

Logau's Sophocles was bound in Bologna, likely in the shop of the "German Students' Binder." Bolognese binders were readily equipped with a number of portrait-bust stamps of poets. A similar binding appears in De Marinis, La Legatura Artistica in Italia nei Secoli XV e XVI, II:1779, plate 339.

8vo (162 x 99 mm). Greek type, with some Roman and italic, 30 lines plus headline. collation: α–γ⁸ δ⁴ ε–η⁸ θ⁴ ι–λ⁸ μ⁴ ν–σ⁸ τ¹⁰ υ–φ⁸ χ¹⁰ ψ–ω⁸ αα⁸ ββ⁴: 196 leaves (δ4, θ4, and χ10 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on ββ4v, section-titles, four-line initial spaces with guide letters. (Title-page restored at foot, with a few letters on verso supplied in manuscript, final leaf extended, some staining and soiling throughout.)

binding: Bolognese brown goatskin (165 x 108 mm), ca. 1520, by the German Students' Binder, covers with border of single gilt fillet flanked by blind fillets, rectangular frame composed of three gilt fillets and multiple blind fillets, in the central compartment an inlaid rectangle of red morocco, with large gilt arabesque at each corner and groupings of three gilt ivy leaves on each side, in the center of inlay on front cover a gilt roundel with a gilt classical bust, representing the author, encircled by gilt-lettered title ΣΟΨΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ ΤΡΑΓΩΔΙΑΙ with a large gilt arabesque above and below, and on rear cover a roundel composed of three concentric gilt French circles containing between the second and third the gilt-lettered name GEORGIVS LOGVS SILESIVS, inside the third, innermost circle are gilt eight stars, the head of Eolus, and a dolphin, spine in eight compartments with three full bands and four half bands gilt, respectively, with rules or hatches, traces of four pairs of fabric ties, edges gilt and gauffered edges to a ropework pattern. (Rebacked, perhaps in nineteenth-century, with restoration to spine and extremities.) Red velvet folding-case with manuscript label.

binding: Georg von Logau (ca. 1495 in Schlaupitz, Herzogtum Schweidnitz–1553 in Breslau), supralibros — unidentified owner, inscription "Georgii Fasligium … Anno domini 1633" [possibly Fasliger] on front pastedown— Christian Gryphius (1649-1706), rector of the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium in Breslau, inscription "Christian Gryphium [?] vratislav" and "Pariss Constat. 8 fl. A[nno] MDCLXXVII" on title-page and final page — Peter Kiefer, Auktion 63: Bücher & Graphik, Alte und Moderne Kunst, Pforzheim, 5-6 October 2007, lot 415. acquisition: Purchased from Bibliopathos, Verona, 2019. references: UCLA 60; Adams S1438; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 62; Edit16 36139; Grolier/Aldus 36, 37; Renouard 34/6; USTC 857020