Vergilius, Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1514, mid-nineteenth-century olive morocco by Francis Bedford

Vergilius Maro, Publius. Virgilius. Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, October 1514

The Robert Hoe copy of the 1514 Virgil.

In the 1907 catalogue of the library of Robert Hoe, Carolyn Shipman describes this copy as the "[t]hird Aldine edition, and the second of two editions of 1514, edited by Andrea Navagaro, who corrected the errata of the first. These corrections were indicated in the two leaves following the imprint, in this edition blank, and followed by the leaf bearing the anchor."

Intriguingly, Alan G. Thomas took a different stance, suggesting in The Book Collector in 1989 that this copy is the earliest 1514 edition, prior to the addition of the errata: "In a copy which came into my hands recently [the Hoe copy], the errors in the text are all present, but leaves E6-7 are blank. Further, the Dolphin has a closed mouth. May this not be the first, unrecorded, issue of this edition before the errors were discovered and the Errata leaf printed? … As far as I can ascertain, no bibliographer has noticed, or recorded, this issue."

8vo (165 x 95 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a-z⁸ A-E⁸: 224 leaves (E6-7 blank). Woodcut Aldine device to title-page and final verso (UCLA A5), first initial illuminated. (Small repair to blank margin of title, and D4-E8, outer edge of x2, z1–4 extended, a few stray spots.)

binding: Mid-nineteenth-century olive morocco by Francis Bedford (active 1841–early 1880s) richly gilt in a Grolieresque design of interlacing strapwork (169 x 104 mm), vellum pastedowns and endleaves, gilt edges. (Extremities lightly rubbed, spine lightly creased.)

provenance: William Horatio Crawford (1815-1888); his sale, Sotheby's London, 12-23 March 1891, lot 3263 — Bernard Quaritch, Catalogue 115 (London 1891), item 720 (£24); Bernard Quaritch, Catalogue 166 (London 1897), item 217 (£30; "olive morocco extra, gilt edges, exquisitely gilt all over the sides and back after an interlaced Maioli pattern, with solid and azuré fleurons. One of the finest pieces of work ever produced by Bedford. The book is the genuine edition of 1514, but the two leaves of errata have been cut away") — Robert Hoe (1839-1909), his morocco booklabel; Anderson Galleries New York 15-19 January 1912, lot 3361 — Alfred de Gunzburg (1865-1936), Sotheby's London, 1-2 August 1935, lot 37; purchased by — Bernard Halliday, Leicester (£3 15s) — Patrick King Rare Books, Catalogue 7 (Stony Stratford 1976), item 100 (£200) — Sotheby's London, 26-27 November 1987, lot 70; purchased by — Alan G. Thomas, London (£770). acquisition: Purchased from Alan G. Thomas, London, 1988. references: UCLA 127; Renouard 68/8; Edit16 55882; USTC 862703; Carolyn Shipman, A catalogue of books printed in foreign languages before the year 1600, forming a portion of the library of Robert Hoe (New York 1907), I, p. 217; Alan G. Thomas, "Note 427. Early impression of the second Aldine Vergil" in The Book Collector (1989), p. 258