Beautifully bound by Marcantonio Guillery - Béraldi copy
Ex Trogi Pompeii historiis externis libri XXXXIII.
12mo. 418, (42) pp. Contemporary brown morocco with straight and curved fillets stamped in blind and gilt, central medallion with the author's name on both covers, fleur-de-lis stamps to corners and in spine compartments, structured by three raised bands. Edges goffered and gilt.
€ 8.500,00
Pretty and scarce edition in miniscule italics, meticulously printed by Gryphius, "l'un des hommes les plus savants de son temps, qui fut le maître de Jean de Tournes et, sans doute aussi, celui de l'imprimeur Estienne Dolet" (Béraldi).
Charmingly bound in full contemporary morocco with the characteristic stamps of Marcantonio Guillery of Rome: a wide band whose two lines variously interlock in the shape of two Cs, sparingly decorated with a variety of small ornaments, encloses a large central compartment neatly filled with tendril designs, at the centre of which an oval cartouche contains the name of the author. Guillery was one of the masters of Roman bookbinding in the mid-16th century; only a small number of his works survive. "He was a son of a French printer, Etienne Guillery of Lunéville, who established himself in Rome at the beginning of the century and married an Italian wife. The date of the son's birth is unknown [...] He bound seventy-one volumes for [Giovanni Battista] Grimaldi, almost half the total extant, but not more than thirty books bound by him are known outside the Apollo and Pegasus collection: a surprisingly small œuvre for a binder of his skill and taste with a working life of over twenty years" (Hobson).
Light foxing to interior. Hinges and spine-ends imperceptibly restored; in immaculate condition.
Provenance: 1) From the library of the famous French collector of fine bindings, Henri Béraldi (1849-1931; cf. Bogeng I, 197f.), with his bookplate to the front pastedown. 2) Acquired at the Béraldi sale (I, 29 May 1934, lot 17) by the French tobacco industrialist and philatelist Maurice Burrus (1882-1959); his bookplate to the front flyleaf and his purchase note on the lower flyleaf. 3) Acquired at the Burrus sale (Paris, 15 Nov. 1971, lot 78) by the French industrialist and philanthropist Paul Louis Weiller (1893-1993). An additional, earlier but unidentified bookplate on the lower pastedown, referencing a Théophile Belin catalogue.
Gültlingen, Lyon V, 937. Baudrier, VIII, 205. Schweiger 2.1, 488. Hobson, Apollo and Pegasus, p. 89, no. 11. Not in Adams or BM-STC French. Cf. Hobson/Culot, Italian and French 16th Century Bookbindings, p. 25f.
