Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Secundo volumine haec continentur M. T. C. De natura deorum libri III. De diuinatione libri II. De fato liber I. Scipionis somnium, quod è sex de rep. libris superest. De legibus libri III. De Vniuersitate liber I. Q. Ciceronis De petitione consulatus ad Marcum fratrem liber I]. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, May 1523
Medallion and plaquette ornament on bindings had been conceived by Paduan antiquaries in the 1460s, as a style of binding appropriate for humanistic works. The models were Roman imperial coins, antique intaglios, and Renaissance medals, and the decoration was achieved by impressing the covers with an intaglio stamp, leaving an impression in relief. In Anthony Hobson’s words, such decoration “denoted an author’s or an owner’s faithfulness to the spirit of the ancient world” (Humanists and Bookbinders, 1989, p.94). This binding is an anomaly: a cameo is used here to proclaim ownership. Impressed on both covers is the distinctive heraldic device of a Saracen in profile wearing a white headband, associated with the Pucci family of Florence (D’argento, alla testa di moro di nero, attortigliata del primo, il tortiglio in genere caricato di tre).
Five other similar bindings have been traced: they cover books published by the Aldine Press from 1517 to 1523, and their uniformity suggests that they were executed on a single commission. There is no evidence in our volume to identify which member of the Pucci family commissioned the binding, nor to prove that it descended in family ownership. Pandolfo Pucci (d. 1560) is known to have collected a library of classical texts, which was coveted by Cosimo I de’ Medici; an inventory of the Pucci family library, made in October 1575, "lists several volumes of Cicero, an author more completely represented in the Pucci collection than any other ancient writer" (Carla Adella D’Arista, Building block of power: The Architectural commissions and decorative projects of the Pucci family in the Renaissance, Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 2017, pp.177, 313, 386). A binding in vellum with the painted arms of Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci (1458-1531) is also known.
Tools of foliage entwined with a stem or trunk, repeated to create a border, are typically Venetian. De Marinis localised the Pucci bindings in the British Library and Victoria & Albert Museum to Venice, and also the binding on a 1515 Giunta Aphthonius, which displays another version of the stem-and-foliage tool in conjunction with a medallion of Nero (La Legatura artistica in Italia, nos. 1684-1686).). Anthony Hobson (op. cit., Census, 18b) and Mirjam Foot (The Henry Davis Gift, III, no. 284) both assigned the Aphthonius to “Padua or Venice, ca. 1530”, however Foot considered the Pucci binding “probably made in Florence, ca. 1525” (The Henry Davis Gift, III, no. 275). Federico Macchi localised both the British Library’s Pucci binding and the Aphthonius to “Bologna, 1525-1550” (British Library Database of Bookbindings).
Volume 2 only (of 2), 8vo (161 x 100 mm). Italic type, 31 lines. collation: a-z8 A-D8: 216 leaves. (Title possibly supplied, with upper margin of title renewed, with loss of first line of text, lower corner of title renewed, some dampstaining.)
binding: Italian binding (Venice or Padua?) (169 x 107 mm), ca. 1530, brown morocco, frame formed by single gilt fillets containing repeated gilt branch entwined by ivy tendrils and leaves, in center a roundel containing a medallion of Moor’s head with a white headband against gilt ground within a shield surrounded by red paint, traces of 4 pairs of ties, spine with 3 bands, central 2 compartments without decoration, head and tail compartments cross-hatched in blind, edges gilt, title on tail-edge "Cicer. de nat. deorc ald." In a cloth folding case.
provenance: Pucci, family library, Florence (arms on binding) — Arthur Lauria, Paris (circular red stamp on rear pastedown) — Maurice Burrus (1882-1959, his acquisition label dated 1937) — Maurice Rheims & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Livres anciens en reliure d’époque, livres illustrés par Gustave Doré livres illustrés de l’époque 1850-1900, Paris, 29 November-1 December 1971, lot 27 — Artcurial & Bernard Clavreuil, Livres et manuscrits, Paris, 15 June 2010, lot 22. acquisition: Purchased from preceding sale via Chamonal. references: UCLA 225; Adams C1741; Cataldi Palau 88 (both volumes); Edit16 12220 (both volumes); Renouard 97/5
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Secundo volumine haec continentur M. T. C. De natura deorum libri III. De diuinatione libri II. De fato liber I. Scipionis somnium, quod è sex de rep. libris superest. De legibus libri III. De Vniuersitate liber I. Q. Ciceronis De petitione consulatus ad Marcum fratrem liber I]. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, May 1523
Medallion and plaquette ornament on bindings had been conceived by Paduan antiquaries in the 1460s, as a style of binding appropriate for humanistic works. The models were Roman imperial coins, antique intaglios, and Renaissance medals, and the decoration was achieved by impressing the covers with an intaglio stamp, leaving an impression in relief. In Anthony Hobson’s words, such decoration “denoted an author’s or an owner’s faithfulness to the spirit of the ancient world” (Humanists and Bookbinders, 1989, p.94). This binding is an anomaly: a cameo is used here to proclaim ownership. Impressed on both covers is the distinctive heraldic device of a Saracen in profile wearing a white headband, associated with the Pucci family of Florence (D’argento, alla testa di moro di nero, attortigliata del primo, il tortiglio in genere caricato di tre).
Five other similar bindings have been traced: they cover books published by the Aldine Press from 1517 to 1523, and their uniformity suggests that they were executed on a single commission. There is no evidence in our volume to identify which member of the Pucci family commissioned the binding, nor to prove that it descended in family ownership. Pandolfo Pucci (d. 1560) is known to have collected a library of classical texts, which was coveted by Cosimo I de’ Medici; an inventory of the Pucci family library, made in October 1575, "lists several volumes of Cicero, an author more completely represented in the Pucci collection than any other ancient writer" (Carla Adella D’Arista, Building block of power: The Architectural commissions and decorative projects of the Pucci family in the Renaissance, Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 2017, pp.177, 313, 386). A binding in vellum with the painted arms of Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci (1458-1531) is also known.
Tools of foliage entwined with a stem or trunk, repeated to create a border, are typically Venetian. De Marinis localised the Pucci bindings in the British Library and Victoria & Albert Museum to Venice, and also the binding on a 1515 Giunta Aphthonius, which displays another version of the stem-and-foliage tool in conjunction with a medallion of Nero (La Legatura artistica in Italia, nos. 1684-1686).). Anthony Hobson (op. cit., Census, 18b) and Mirjam Foot (The Henry Davis Gift, III, no. 284) both assigned the Aphthonius to “Padua or Venice, ca. 1530”, however Foot considered the Pucci binding “probably made in Florence, ca. 1525” (The Henry Davis Gift, III, no. 275). Federico Macchi localised both the British Library’s Pucci binding and the Aphthonius to “Bologna, 1525-1550” (British Library Database of Bookbindings).
Volume 2 only (of 2), 8vo (161 x 100 mm). Italic type, 31 lines. collation: a-z8 A-D8: 216 leaves. (Title possibly supplied, with upper margin of title renewed, with loss of first line of text, lower corner of title renewed, some dampstaining.)
binding: Italian binding (Venice or Padua?) (169 x 107 mm), ca. 1530, brown morocco, frame formed by single gilt fillets containing repeated gilt branch entwined by ivy tendrils and leaves, in center a roundel containing a medallion of Moor’s head with a white headband against gilt ground within a shield surrounded by red paint, traces of 4 pairs of ties, spine with 3 bands, central 2 compartments without decoration, head and tail compartments cross-hatched in blind, edges gilt, title on tail-edge "Cicer. de nat. deorc ald." In a cloth folding case.
provenance: Pucci, family library, Florence (arms on binding) — Arthur Lauria, Paris (circular red stamp on rear pastedown) — Maurice Burrus (1882-1959, his acquisition label dated 1937) — Maurice Rheims & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Livres anciens en reliure d’époque, livres illustrés par Gustave Doré livres illustrés de l’époque 1850-1900, Paris, 29 November-1 December 1971, lot 27 — Artcurial & Bernard Clavreuil, Livres et manuscrits, Paris, 15 June 2010, lot 22. acquisition: Purchased from preceding sale via Chamonal. references: UCLA 225; Adams C1741; Cataldi Palau 88 (both volumes); Edit16 12220 (both volumes); Renouard 97/5
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