Suetonius, XII Caesares, Venice, Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1521, Northern Italian (perhaps Bolognese) armorial binding

Suetonius Tranquillus, Gaius. In hoc volumine haec continentur. C. Suetonij Tranquilli XII Caesares. Sexti Aurelij Victoris à d. Caesare Augusto usque ad Theodosium excerpta. Eutropij De gestis Romanorum Lib. X. Pauli Diaconi libri VIII ad Eutropij historiam additi. Index rerum memorabilium per singulos Tranquilli Caesares ab Ioanne Baptista Egnatio Veneto compositus. Annotationes etiam Erasmi in Suetonium, Eutropium, & Paulum Diaconum per literarum ordinem. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, May 1521

Second Aldine edition, with Erasmus's annotated index added.

Erasmus’s name has been erased in several places, likely the result of censorship. The gilt armorial can possibly be linked to the Montefani family library, Bologna.

8vo (152 x 105 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: A-G⁸ H⁴ a-z⁸ aa-rr⁸: 380 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device to title-page and verso of last leaf. (Title toned and spotted with a couple of small chips to upper edge, intermittent light spotting and dampstaining, mainly marginal, name of Erasmus erased, possibly by a censor.)

binding: Northern Italian (perhaps Bolognese) armorial binding (159 x 99 mm), brown morocco over pasteboards ca. 1530s, tooled in blind & gold, blind leafy border, in center, gilt arms: Trois monts sommés d'une croix pattée et deux palmes, spine with four compartments, blind saltires in compartments, traces of four pairs of ties, edges stained blue, title in ink on head- edge. (Upper cover nearly detached, reinforced at hinge, restoration to head and foot of spine and corners, small area of worming to upper pastedown, outer edge of rear pastedown reinforced with additional strip of paper.)

provenance: Unidentified owner, contemporary manuscript marginalia in Latin throughout, Erasmus's name obliterated in several places (possibly by a censor) — Montefani, family library (Bologna) (?), armorial supralibros — Camillo Meli Lupi, prince of Soragna (1873-1954) — Carlo Alberto Chiesa, Milan — Christie's London, 3 May 1995, lot 76. acquisition: Purchased at Christie's via Martin Breslauer Inc. references: UCLA 201; Renouard 91/7; Edit16 37658; USTC 857772