Arrianus, De expeditione sive rebus gestis Alexandri, Basel, 1539, gilt-tooled brown morocco

ARRIANUS, FLAVIUS. Αρριανου περι Αλεχανδρου αναβασεως ιστοριων βιβλια οκτω. Arriani de expeditione sive rebus gestis Alexandri Macedonum Regiae libri octo, nuper & reperiti, & quam diligentissime in lucem editi. Basel: (Robert Winter, March 1539)

Arrian’s account of the march of Alexander the Great against the Persians was written in the early second century AD and is mostly based on Xenophon. The translation into Latin by Bartolomeo Facio, mentioned on the title-page, was printed at the same time by Winter, but often bound separately and is not here present.

The contemporary north Italian binding contains several features of an alla greca binding, with slightly extended endbands, boards with a groove along the edges which are flush with the textblock along the fore-edge (but not quite flush at the head and tail of the volume), and a rounded but not completely flat spine. The stubs on the lower cover indicate a typical three-corded strap which would have had a metal circle at the end to attach to a pin inserted in the edge of the upper cover. The suggested Paduan origin for the binding would fit with the book being owned by a German student there, who then took the volume back home to northern Europe. Similar Cupid stamps appear on contemporary Venetian and Bolognese bindings. Hobson lists a group of 31 bindings assigned to a shop in Padua that used both a Cupid and a Fortuna stamp (Humanists and Bookbinders, appendix 5), mostly on classical texts bound for foreign students; the present volume is number 16 in his list.

8vo (156 x 94 mm). Greek type, 23 lines plus headline. Collation: α⁸ a-z⁸ A-R⁸: 328 leaves. Woodcut initials, woodcut printer’s device on final verso, title-page and following page with inking around the letters. (Occasional light damp-staining, foxing or browning.)

Binding: Contemporary gilt-tooled brown morocco over thin wooden boards (161 x 104 mm), with some alla greca features, plausibly made in Padua, central gilt stamp of Cupid within a frame of leafy stamps and blind and gilt fillets with corner swirls and rosettes, spine with blind hatching, gilt and gauffered edges, stubs of strap attachments on lower cover, holes in edge of upper board from pin attachments. (Joints cracking, ends of spine repaired, a few small wormholes in binding, lacking straps.)

Provenance: Philippus Schmidt of Pomerania and Johan Lau[--], inscriptions on title-page — Herr von Pinow, pencil inscription on inside front cover — Aemilius Pinzger (of Ratibor, Silesia, died 1841), inscription on inside front cover dated Vrat. (Wroclaw), 1823 — Robert von Hirsch (1883-1977), sale, Sotheby’s, 17 October 1978, lot 97 (binding attributed to Lyon), £480 — Librairie Lardanchet, catalogue 74 (Paris, 1981), item 8. Acquisition: Purchased in 1990 from Martin Breslauer Inc., New York. References: VD16 A 3796 (both Greek and Latin parts