Steuco, Recognitio veteris testamenti, Venice, Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Heirs of Andrea Torresano, 1529, contemporary Bolognese brown goatskin

Steuco, Agostino. Recognitio veteris testamenti ad hebraicam veritatem, collata etiam editione Septuaginta interprete cum ipsa veritate hebraica, nostraque translatione, cum expositione hebraeorum, ac graecorum, qui passim toto opere citantur. Vbi quantum fieri potest, monstrantur loci, qui in editione latina, et graeca discrepant a codicibus hebraeorum, per Augustinum Eugubinum can. reg.s. Augustini Ordinis s. Saluatoris. Ne quis alius aut Venetiis, aut usquam locorum hunc impune librum imprimat, Senatus Veneti decreto cautum est [Latin, Greek, and Hebrew]. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Heirs of Andrea Torresano, 1529

A set of annotations on Jerome's Old Testament Latin text, based upon extensive use of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts in the Grimani Library, dedicated to Marino Grimani, who Steuco thanks for placing the resources of the library at his disposal. A second preface is devoted almost exclusively to the problems that Steuco encountered while editing.

Steuco had entered the Augustinian Congregation of San Salvatore in Bologna in 1513, taking up residence in the order’s house in Gubbio (hence the lettering “Eugubinus” on the lower cover of this binding). Steuco was attending the university in Bologna when in 1525 he was sent to the Augustinian Canons of Sant Antonio di Castello in Venice. For the next four years, Steuco served as custodian of the vast manuscript collection that Cardinal Domenico Grimani had located there. In 1529 he was nominated prior of the convent of San Marco in Reggio Emilia and in 1536 he obtained a position in the household of Paul III in Rome.

This Bolognese binding lettered with his name on lower cover (the usual position for a gift-giver’s name) and the early inscriptions of Dominican friars in Bologna allow for the possibility that it was a presentation copy, from the author to a brother monk.  

4to (204 x 150 mm). Roman type, with some Greek and Hebrew, 36 lines plus headline. collation: *² a–z⁸ &⁸ '⁸ R⁸ A⁴: 214 foliated leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page, three- and five-line initial spaces with guide letters. (Title-page a little stained and worn, inner margins strengthened at first and last leaf of every eight-leaf quire and occasionally elsewhere, some dampstaining at top margin, scattered foxing and light browning, a couple of small wormholes at end, strictly marginal s8–&3, through text and costing an occasional letter &4–A4.)

binding: Contemporary Bolognese brown goatskin over bevelled wooden boards (214 x 160 mm), foliate-roll border, in blind on front cover and in gilt on rear, gilt fleuron at inner corners, gilt head with wreath and club in center, rear-cover gilt- lettered AVGVSTINVS | EVGVBINVS | IN VET. TEST | AMETV, spine undecorated in four compartments, remnants of four clasps and indications of having been chained, plain endpapers, plain edges flush with board edges. (Worn, some wormholes, a bit dampstained.)

provenance: Unidentified owner, sixteenth-century inscription "F.B.P. O(rdinis). P(raedicatorum)." on title-page — S. Domenico, Bologna (Dominican convent), inscription "Con(vent)us S. Domci de Bononia," dated 1537, on title-page — Giovanni Malvezzi de' Medici (1819–1892), armorial bookplate — Baptiste Galanti, Paris, cited by De Marinis. acquisition: Purchased from H. P. Kraus, New York, 1978. references: UCLA 256; Adams S1847; Cataldi Palau 119; Edit16 47876; Renouard 106/1; USTC 857541; for the binding: De Marinis, La Legatura artistica in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI (Florence, 1960), no. 2830 and Pl. 485 (listed by De Marinis among alla greca bindings); Anna Gialdini, “Ligato alla greca” Greek-style bookbindings in early modern Venice and beyond (2024), p. 243 (this binding)