Statius, Syluarum, Venice, Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1519, Roman black goatskin by Niccolò Franzese for G. B. Grimaldi

Statius, Publius Papinius. Statii Syluarum libri V Achilleidos libri XII Thebaidos libri II Orthographia et flexus dictionum Graecarum omnium apud Statium cum accentib. et generib. ex uarijs utriusque linguae authoribus. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, January 1519

Second Aldine edition, a fourth copy, from the celebrated library of the Genoese banker Giovanni Battista Grimaldi, with his distinctive Apollo and Pegasus medallion on the covers. Since 1817, when first noticed in print by Thomas Frognall Dibdin, the small but extremely choice group of Apollo and Pegasus bindings has been equated with elegance, refinement, and mystery, the latter due to the fact that, despite many ingenious attempts, the original owner of the collection was never positively identified. The device itself was bewildering: Apollo drives the chariot of the sun towards a mountain on which Pegasus stands, the whole scene surrounded by the motto "Straight and not crooked." As to the name of this mysterious Renaissance collector, scholars and collectors had proposed vigorous arguments for "Mecenate, Physician to the Pope," Canevari (Physician to Urban VII), Pier Luigi Farnese (natural son of Paul III), Ottavio, second Duke of Parma (grandson of Paul III), Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and Apollonio Filareto; all proved insupportable. In 1975, in a sweeping and masterful study—Apollo and Pegasus: An Enquiry into the Formation and Dispersal of a Renaissance Library—Anthony Hobson proved convincingly that Giovanni Battista Grimaldi was the owner of the collection, which was housed in Genoa; that the Apollo and Pegasus impresa was designed for him by his humanist advisor Claudio Tolomei; and, that the books were chosen by Tolomei and purchased by him in Rome, where he commissioned three different workshops to bind them. Delving into the archives of the papal accounts, Hobson succeeded in naming all three binders: Niccolò Franzese, Maestro Luigi (his full name was Luigi de Gava), and Marcantonio Guillery. 

Grimaldi's splendid library was formed under the personal supervision of the Roman humanist Claudio Tolomei (ca. 1490–1556), founder of the Accademia della Virtu. The scope of the collection was straightforward: to encompass all that was necessary for a cultivated man. The library contained about 200 books (all bearing the Apollo and Pegasus device on the bindings), written in Latin, Italian, and Spanish (Greek works represented in translation only); the volumes were bound according to the language of the work: olive or brown for Latin books (as here) and dark red for those in the vernacular. 

The Grimaldi library was dispersed between two branches of the family, one in Naples and one in Genoa, and books from the latter started to appear in other collections during the seventeenth century. The Genoese part remained in the family for longer, probably until the early nineteenth century. Their significance resulted in fake Apollo and Pegasus bindings appearing in the late nineteenth century, and the present binding was once doubted.

Geoffrey Hobson included this Statius in his Maioli, Canevari and Others (London, 1926) as no. 85a, crediting the then-current ownership to Messrs. Maggs Bros. Tammaro de Marinis likewise cited the book in La Legatura Artistica in Italia nei Secoli XV e XVI (Florence, 1960), no. 742, again citing the location as Maggs. However, in an essay for a Festschrift for Mirjam Foot, For the Love of the Binding (London, 2000), Anthony Hobson revealed that his father "saw the Statius, [Carmina] (Venice: in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Torresani, 1519) at Messrs. Maggs Bros. and included it in his list of the Apollo-and-Pegasus books, but later felt uncertain and annotated his own copy of the Maioli, 'I fear [the Statius] is of very doubtful authenticity.' In view of this opinion, and since I had only an indifferent photograph to go by, I thought it best to omit the volume from the 1975 list [Apollo and Pegasus]. The book has now reappeared in a New York sale, and my friend Dr. T. Kimball Brooker, who examined it, tells me that it is genuine, although not in the finest condition." In the supplemental listing of plaquette and medallion bindings that he contributed to Foot's Festschrift, Hobson accepted the Statius as an Apollo and Pegasus binding for Grimaldi bound by Niccolò Franzese.

8vo (160 x 100 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a–z⁸ A–O⁸: 296 foliated leaves (K2 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and O8v, section-titles, two to five-line initial spaces with guide letters. (Title-page lightly soiled, small portion of lower fore-edge corner of q2 trimmed [or natural flaw?], very occasional traces of marginal foxing.)

binding: Roman black goatskin over pasteboards (165 x 112 mm) by Niccolò Franzese for G. B. Grimaldi, covers with his Apollo and Pegasus impresa stamped horizontally at center surrounded by gilt lettering ΟΡΘΩΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΗ ΛΘΧΙΩΣ [sic, for λοχιως], title gilt-lettered at head of each cover STATIVS, outer frame of blind and gilt fillets, gilt with leafy tools and fleur- de-lys, spine in seven (formerly eight) compartments with three full and three (formely four) half bands (one removed to accomodate later title label), bands gilt ruled or hatched, plain endpapers, gilt edges. (Extremities rather worn, joints cracked, head and tail of spine restored, head chipped with loss.) Brown morocco solander box, chemise, by RIviere & Son, lettering attributing ownership to Canevari, as was the fashion.

provenance: Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (ca. 1524–ca. 1612), supralibros, his impresa on covers — Maggs Bros., London — Walter Petschek (1899–1998); Christie's New York, 9 June 1999, lot 64 (designated as "Property of an East Coast Estate"). acquisition: Purchased at Christie's via Halwas. references: UCLA 175; Adams S1672; Cataldi Palau 43; Edit16 53846; Renouard 88/2; USTC 857456; for the binding: G. D. Hobson, Maioli, Canevari and Others (London, 1926), p. 165, no. 85a; A. Hobson, "Plaquette and Medallion Bindings: A Second Supplement," in For the Love of the Binding: Studies in Bookbinding History Presented to Mirjam Foot (London, 2000), pp. 67–79; De Marinis, La Legatura Artistica in Italia nei Secoli XV e XVI (Florence, 1960), no. 742