Beschreibung:

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. M. Tullii Ciceronis Orationum pars I [-III]. Corrigente Paulo Manutio. Venice: sons of Aldo Manuzio, 1550
A three-volume edition of Cicero’s orations, largely a reprint of the Aldine press editions of 1540-1541 and 1546. These volumes first came to notice in the sale in 1921 of Lord Vernon’s library at Sudbury Hill, when they were part of an identically bound, eight-volume set of the works of Cicero, described as bearing “the family arms of Giolito of Ferrara”. The eight volumes were offered in a single lot, and bought by Maggs (£25 15s). By 1930, the set was in Munich, illustrated in Katalog 93 of Jacques Rosenthal, having lost that attribution (item 604, price RM 1800); it was immediately purchased by the Florentine marchand-amateur Tammaro De Marinis. In 1949, the Cicero returned to London, presented in Catalogue 67 of the booksellers Martin Breslauer, as “Bound for Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari” (priced £780). When re-offered in their Catalogue 71 in 1950, and again unsold, Bernard Breslauer broke the set into five parts, selling that same year De philosophia (2 volumes, 1552) to J. R. Abbey (now British Library, Henry Davis Gift 809; Foot, III, no 327) and Epistolae ad Atticum (1552) to Albert Ehrman (now Oxford, Bodleian Library, Broxb. 10.21; Nixon, op. cit., no. 32). By 1952, Breslauer had sold Orationum pars I [-III] (3 volumes, 1550) to the bookseller Nicolas Rauch in Geneva (the volumes now offered for sale), and Epistolae familiares (1552) to Pierre Berès in Paris (see lot 352). The circumstances of his sale of Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium libriIIII, and its present whereabouts, are unknown.
When he came to describe Ehrman’s volume of the Cicero, in 1956, Howard Nixon concluded “it seems safe to assume that the binding is in some way related to Giolito … If this is so, it would seem likely that the book was from Giolito’s private library…” De Marinis, who in 1960 had proposed Vittoria Colonna as owner of the phoenix device bindings, and classified them as Roman bindings, recanted in 1966, recognizing the device on the Epistolae familiares as “das Emblem der Druckerei des Gabriel Giolito”, without venturing that it belonged to Gabriele Giolito himself. Anthony Hobson, describing Abbey’s volume of the set, in the June 1965 sale catalogue of his library, considered them Roman bindings, and “likely that they belonged to Gabriel Giolito, the Venetian printer”. By 1975 Hobson had changed his mind, and by 1999, once again.
In his last (published) reference to the phoenix device bindings, Hobson re-positions them beside three bindings he assumes were made by or for the managers of the Giolito branches in Bologna and Ferrara, and for the main bookshop in Venice. Each of those bindings displays a different version of a phoenix device; none is identical with the device appearing on the Genoese phoenix device bindings. In his earlier work, Hobson accepted at face value Giolito’s deposition in 1565 before a tribunal of the Inquisition, when he named the cities where his firm had outlets, and did not mention Genoa. In 1999, Hobson took that statement with a grain of salt, suggesting that the phoenix device bindings might after all relate to the firm’s activities in Genoa. See also the 1552 Epistolae familiares in this binding, lot 352.
2 volumes, 8vo (161 x 99 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: aa-uu8 xx10 yy-zz8 AA-LL8 MM10: 284 leaves; aaa- zzz8 AAA-MMM8: 280 leaves. (Small area of worming at extreme upper gutter margin of flyleaves and title in vol. 1, minor occasional dustsoiling, generally crisp and fresh.) In a perspex-paned blue morocco case.
binding: Genoese bindings, ca. 1560, by the Grimaldi Binder (168 x 105 mm), dark green morocco, single gilt fillet around sides, gilt rosette at corners, inner frame of gilt and blind fillets, with fleuron in corners, 2 intertwined gilt rectangles with fleuron in corners, in center a phoenix rising from flames issuing from urn, and pecking at the sun, traces of 2 pairs of ties, spine with 3 full and 4 half bands, compartments undecorated, gilt horizontal spine title, gilt edges with a gauffered. (Some light wear at extremities, small areas of careful restoration, few tiny wormholes on spine of vol. 3.)
provenance: Unidentified owner (arms on binding of a phoenix) — George John Warren, 5th Baron Vernon (1803-1866, bookplate, sold Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, 19-21 October 1921, lot 304, in a set of 8 volumes) — Maggs Bros, London (bought in sale, £25 15s) — Jacques Rosenthal (collation note “HD”, i.e. Helmut Domizlaff, then an employee of the firm, their Katalog 93, item 604) — Libreria antiquaria T. De Marinis & C., Florence, acquired September-October 1930 (Rosenthal shop catalogue in Stadtarchiv München) — Martin Breslauer, London (their Catalogue 67, item 28 and Catalogue 71, item 22, offered within the set of eight volumes) — Gianfranco Alessandrini (1926-2001) — Pierre Bergé & Jean-Baptiste de Proyart, Vente Alde Manuce (1450-1515): une collection, Geneva, 19 November 2004, lot 126. acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale via Robin Halwas. references: UCLA 393; Edit16 12300; Renouard 148/6. A. Hobson, Apollo and Pegasus: an enquiry into the formation and dispersal of a Renaissance Library (1975), pp.99-100; H. Nixon, Broxbourne Library: styles and designs of bookbindings, from the 12th to the 20th century (London 1956), no. 32; T. De Marinis, Die italienischen Renaissance-Einbände der Bibliothek Fürstenberg (Hamburg 1966), pp.162-163; A. Hobson, Renaissance book collecting (Cambridge 1999), p.127.