Sokol Books Ltd Catalogue 73 SOKOL BOOKS LTD Specialists in rare and early books & manuscripts CATALOGUE LXXIII Correspondence address: POB 2409 London W1A 2SH Visit our shop at: 239a Fulham Road London SW3 6HY Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 7pm [email protected] Tel: 0207 499 5571 or 0207 351 5119 WWW.sokol.co.uk Item 32 - GUAZZO @SokolBooks @SokolBooks @SokolBooks company/Sokol-books-ltd Sokol Books Ltd Catalogue 73 SPLENDID BINDING, SILK BROCADE PASTEDOWNS 1. ARIOSTO, Lodovico. Orlando furioso di Messer Lodovico Ariosto. (with) Cinque canti di un nuovo libro di M. Ludovico Ariosto. Venice, Aldo I Manuzio, 1545. £35,000 FIRST EDITION of second part, and first Aldine edition of first. 4to. 2 works in one, ff. 247 (i) 28, separate t-ps. Italic letter, occasional Roman. Printer’s device to t-p and last of each. Light browning and marginal spotting to first t-p, small clean loss to blank lower outer corner, upper margins slightly short. An excellent, clean copy in splendid C19 green crushed morocco by Roger Storr, stunning floral silk brocade eps, loose silk bookmark. Gilt to a triple- ruled panel design, outer border with gilt dentelles, roll of lilies, and suns to corners, centre panel bordered with blind-tooled tendril and attractive gilt Aldine device, gilt floral roll to outer and gilt palmettes to inner edges, a.e.g. Spine triple gilt ruled in four compartments, roll of palmettes at head and foot, design with single rule squares to first and last, gilt lettering, Ariosto’s poem, Orlando’s love for Angelica, as narrated by raised bands gilt. Bookplate of Syston Park with arms Boiardo, turns into ‘fury’; at her rejection, the paladin loses and monogram of Sir John Hayford Thorold to front his mind and abandons the battlefield. The very complex plot pastedown, bookplate of William Henry Smith to interweaves narratives of the paladins’ war against the Turks, recto and ex-libris of Pierre Berge ́ to fly, label ‘Bound Angelica’s flight from the furious Orlando and their by R[oger] Storr Grantham’ to rear pastedown. The adventures, and the love story between the Christian odd annotation in red crayon or black-brown ink. Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero. ‘Orlando furioso’ became an instant classic and was extensively reprinted in The splendid binding was made by Roger Storr of Grantham Italy and France in the C16. The first 40 cantos were for Sir John Hayford Thorold of Syston Park, Lincolnshire. published in 1516; the final version in 46 followed in 1532, Four similar bindings by Storr, dated post-1825, are recorded joined here by five further cantos. Animated by darker on Aldines bound for Sir John as nos. 50, 391 and 680 overtones, they narrate the destruction of Charlemagne’s (352, 404, 420 and 941 unsigned) in the Ahmanson- army by the sorceress Alcina. Allegedly given to Aldus’s press Murphy collection. Excellent copy of these scarce Aldine by his son, Virginio, the ‘Cinque Canti’ appeared for the editions together comprising for the first time Ludovico first time in this edition. Ariosto’s complete ‘Orlando furioso’. One of the greatest authors of the Italian Renaissance, Ariosto (1474-1533) Only Pierpont Morgan, Colorado and UCLA copies studied law and classics at Ferrara before entering the service recorded in the US. Renouard́ 133:13: ‘tres̀ bonne et of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este and later of Alfonso, Duke of l’une des plus rares parmi les editionś Aldines’; Brunet Ferrara. For his patrons, he fulfilled diplomatic and political I, 433: ‘bonne et fort rare’; Gamba 54. Not in BM functions, including emissary to Pope Julius II, whilst STC It. composing poems, comedies and satires mostly in the Italian vernacular. His masterpiece —‘Orlando furioso’—is a K116 chivalric poem in ottava rima intended as a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo’s ‘Orlando innamorato’ (1483). In 1 Sokol Books Ltd Catalogue 73 covers double blind and single gilt ruled to a panel FINE ETON BINDING design, stopped at the corners by a gilt floral tools, large block-stamped gilt corner-pieces to corners of 2. ARISTOTLE. Organum, hoc est, libri omnes ad inner panel, tree device, with ‘noli altum sapere’ logicam pertinentes. Frankfurt, apud heredes panel, gilt stamped to centres, “Charls: Somersett” Andreae VVecheli, Claudium Marnium, & gilt stamped within double gilt ruled box frame in Iohan. Aubrium, 1597. upper compartment, his motto “Mutare: Vel: Timere. Sperno”, within similar box frame, on lower £4,950 cover, edges blind ruled, spine double gilt ruled in compartments, with star fleuron gilt at centres, title Large 8vo. pp. 209-895, (i) only. O-KKk8. Greek gilt lettered direct above, remains of blue silk ties, and Roman letter in double column, side notes and head and tail of spine very expertly restored, joints a glosses in tiny Roman. Very numerous woodcut little rubbed. diagrams in text, small floriated woodcut initials, bookplate of Robert S Pirie on pastedown. Light age A fine and exceptionally rare example of a beautiful English yellowing. A fine copy, with good margins, (many binding by Vincent Williamson, binder of Eton College, deckle edges to lower margin), in contemporary thick bound for Charles Somerset. Williamson sometimes, as here, dark calf by Williamson, binder of Eton College, used a distinctive gilt tooled ‘Noli altum sapere’ based on the Estienne device, but adopted by the booksellers Bonham and John Norton and in some cases used by the binder of their books. According to Nixon, Williamson appears to be the first English binder to tool the title of a book on the spine (as here). He is probably the Vincent Williamson apprenticed to George Singleton, stationer, on March 7, 1603. Parish records of St. Giles Cripplegate show that he married Elizabeth Dawson in December 1584. He is referred to in the records of Eton College until 1621. “London was not the only town where gold- tooled bookbindings were made in the first half of the seventeenth century. Thanks to Sir Robert Birley’s researches, we know of bookbindings being produced at Eton, and we know the name of the binder, one Williamson. We even know that he was the first – but by no means the last – recorded English bookbinder who found at one stage of his career that alcohol improved his finishing, only to find that the improvement lasted but a short time... Nevertheless he continued to work until c, 1621, although already in 1608 Sir Dudley Carleton wrote from Eton to a friend in London: ..”We have here a goode workman, but he hath commonly his hands full of worke, and his head full of drinck, yet I had as leve venture my worke with this good fellow that is sometime sober, as with them that are always mad” He also bound several books for Sir Charles Somerset, when the later le Eton in 1604, which are very nearly the first English bindings to be lettered on the spine”. Nixon and Foot The History of Decorated Bookbinding in England, p. 52. See plate 42 for an example of a Williamson binding made for Charles Somerset and BL Shelfmark c128k3 for another, without the Noli Altum Sapere device. BM STC Ger. C17th p. 41. L2251 2 Sokol Books Ltd Catalogue 73 half and gilt hand-tooled keys surmounted by a pavilion, a heraldic symbol of the temporal power of the Church used by 3. BACCI, Andrea. De Thermis Andreae Baccii...libri papal families (Galbreath, ‘Papal Heraldry’, 31). In 1576, septem. Venice, apud Vincentium Valgrisium, Boncompagni was appointed to the patriciate of Venice, hence 1571. the coronet. This is the only extant instance with a centrepiece in which the coronet is outside the cartouche—probably an £6,500 early experiment leading to the more famous design. FIRST EDITION. Folio. pp. (lxxii) 509 (i). Roman Very good, clean copy of this ground-breaking study of letter with Italic, occasional Greek. Printer’s device to thermal waters and their medical uses. A proteǵ e ́ of Cardinal t-p, double-page woodcut plan of the Baths of Ascanio Colonna in Rome, Andrea Bacci (1524-1600) was Diocletian. T-p very slightly thumbed, two tiny an Italian doctor, philosopher and polyhedral author of works worm trails at foot of first and last couple of ll., light on natural science (studies of wines and elks) and medicine water stain to some upper outer corners, including (on medicaments, poisons and antidotes). A blend of these woodcut, very largely marginal. A very good, clean, interests, ‘De thermis’ was intended as a reference manual for large-margined copy in most handsome C16 Roman physicians and contributed to contemporary European debates crimson goatskin, covers expertly on thermal medicine, which elicited great interest among the laid onto modern morocco, French and Italian elites, including authors like blind-tooled to a triple-ruled Montaigne. Assisted by the work of panel design, second border ancient, medieval and with gilt double fillet, contemporary authorities including interlinked circles, and demi- Galen, Bartolomeo Montagnana dragons to outer corners, and Gabriele Falloppio, Bacci central panel with arabesque discussed the nature of mineral cornerpieces and gilt waters (from salts or metals), their cartouche with arms of therapeutic forms (cold, warm, Giacomo Boncompagni scalding, filtered, distilled, etc.) surmounted by coronet, edges and modes of administration. He with diagonal dashes in blind, explained why, how, when, a.e.g. Spine in four where and which spas should be compartments, blind- tooled chosen, according to the bather’s double-ruled border and condition (from stomach ache to stamped demi-dragon to each, tumours and syphilis), the physical double raised bands, modern component and therapeutic power eps, green cloth ties. Armorial of waters.