Suetonius, De vita XII caesarum, Lyon, Baldazare de Gabiano, 1508, modern decorated boards

Suetonius Tranquillus, Gaius. De vita XII caesarum. Lyon: Baldazare de Gabiano, 3 October 1508

This 1508 Lyon edition of De vita XII Caesarum, printed by Balthasar de Gabiano, is explicitly stated in the preliminary epistle to have been produced in an edition of 1,000 copies (mille exemplaria). Shaw confirms that this edition is not derived from the Aldine text. The volume is dedicated to Jean Grolier by the editor, the Bolognese humanist Gaspar Argilensis (Gaspare Mazzoli da Argile), one of Grolier’s teachers in Paris, whom Grolier had hired as a private tutor in classical studies, and in whose house Grolier was living in 1508 (A. Hobson, Humanists and bookbinders, p. 115). “Jean Grolier’s name, in the Latin form Janus Grolerius, appears in print for the first time in this pseudo-Aldine” (Grolier Club, French Book Arts, curated by George Fletcher, 2019).

8vo (151 x 84 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a-y⁸: 176 leaves. Guide letters in initial spaces. (Inscription to first and last leaves pasted over, occasional very light, staining, toning and worming.)

binding: Modern decorated boards with Romulus and Remus pattern (158 x 97 mm).

provenance: Title and last leaf with strip pasted over a crossed-out inscription (presumably early ownership inscriptions). acquisition: Purchased from Libreria Forni, Bologna, 1977. references: UCLA 1134; Renouard 309/27; FB 87067; USTC 143355; Baudrier, VII, 23; Gültlingen, I, p. 68: 39; Shaw 29; H.D. Saffrey, Sur une édition de Suétone parue à Lyon en octobre 1508 (Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 34 [1972], pp. 427–434); William Kemp, “Counterfeit Aldines and Italic- Letter: Editions Printed in Lyons 1502-1510: Early Diffusion in Italy and France” in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 35 (1997), pp. 80, 90 & fig. 8 (dedicatory epistle from Gaspar Argilensis to Grolier)