Seneca, Opera, Basel, 1540, Spanish brown calf over thick wooden boards with fore-edge decoration, Sancho Dávila y Toledo copy

SENECA, LUCIUS ANNAEUS. Opera L. Annaei Senecae et ad dicendi facultatem, et ad bene vivendum utilissima, per Des. Erasmum Roterod. & Matthaeum Fortunatum, ex fide veterum codicum, tum ex probatis autoribus, postremo sagaci nonnunquam divinatione, sic emendata, ut ad genuinam lectionem minimum desiderare possis. Adiecta sunt Scholia D. Erasmi Roterodami in bonam partem operis. Beati Rhenani in Ludum de morte Claudij Caesaris. Rodolphi Agricolae in Declamationes aliquot Commentarioli. Fernandi Pinciani castigationes in universum opus. Index rerum & verborum locuples. Basel: Johannes Herwagen, 1540

Folio (304 x 194 mm). Roman, italic and occasional Greek type, 53 lines plus headline. Collation: πa⁸ a-z⁶ A-Z⁶ Aa-Mm⁶ Nn⁴ 2A-2G⁶ 2H⁸ 2I-2K⁶ 2L⁴: 426 leaves (2N4, 2H8, and 2L4 blank). Woodcut printer's device on title-page and final verso, woodcut initials, some lines and passages marked in ink. (Marginal dampstaining, scattered wormholes from upper pastedown to d1 and HH3 to lower pastedown, ink stains to N5v-Nr.)

Binding: Spanish brown calf over thick wooden boards (320 x 220 mm), second half of sixteenth century, tooled in blind, border composed of a blind roll of leaves, tendrils, and medallions, same roll repeated 6 times vertically in central panel, inner frame empty only with tooled miters, remains of 2 clasps (clasps in accompanying envelope), late sixteenth-century fore-edge decoration, title lettered across fore-edge with armorials and leafy decoration. (Binding somewhat rubbed and scraped, some worming, ends of spine, joints, and corners repaired, joints cracked.)

Provenance: Sancho Dávila y Toledo (1546-1625), arms on fore-edge — [by family descent to] Vicente Joaquín Osorio de Moscoso (1744-1816), marqués de Astorga, printed label pasted to foot of πa2 "Biblioteca del excmo. Señor Marques de Astorga" — possibly Delbergue-Cormont & Antoine Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la bibliothèque de son excellence de le Marquis d’Astorga, Paris, 31 May-4 June 1870, lot 480 (dated 1529) — Hercule Jean-Baptiste de Peyerimhoff de Fontenelle (1809-1890), armorial exlibris — Lapoyade Deschamps family, armorial exlibris, sale, Alde & Dominique Courvoisier, Livres anciens et modernes, Paris, 13 December 2011, lot 124. Acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. References: USTC 679629; VD16 S 5761