![[COLONNA, Francesco (1433-1527)]. La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilio. Venice: sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2000/CKS/2000_CKS_06348_0153_000(013032).jpg?w=1)
Details
[COLONNA, Francesco (1433-1527)]. La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilio. Venice: sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545.
2° (297 x 195mm). Roman type, occasional Greek and Hebrew. 170 fine woodcuts, including 9 full-page, printer's device on title, repeated on final verso. 5- to 9-line initial spaces with guide-letter. (Very light dampstain at some lower corners.) Late 19th-century red morocco, panelled in blind and tooled in gold with Aldine anchor at centre of both sides, roll-tooled turn-ins, gilt edges, signed by Binda of Milan. Provenance: small initials 'CB' on first and last leaves; presentation inscription dated 1905 erased from flyleaf; Marquis Girolamo d'Adda (armorial bookplate); Charles Fairfax Murray (Catalogo dei libri posseduti da C. Fairfax Murray, ... provenienti dalla Bibliotheca del Marchese Girolamo d'Adda, 1902, no.1339).
SECOND EDITION, reprinting page-for-page Aldus's 1499 edition, widely considered the most beautiful book of the 15th century. The 1545 edition, printed by Aldus's heirs, re-using the exceptional series of woodcut illustrations. which have lost nothing in freshness. The Paduan miniaturist, Benedetto Bordone, has been advanced as the artist of the illustrations (two blocks are signed 'b'), but the attribution remains unproven. Six blocks have been re-cut: b4v, b5r (2), e2v, e5r and x2r. Despite its claim to be 'corrected', the text on fos. n1v and n8r has been transposed, as it was in the first edition. 'Cette réimpression est plus rare que l'édit. originale' (Sander). Adams C-2414; Mortimer Harvard Italian 131; Renouard, Alde, pp.133-34; Essling Pt. I, vol.2:2, no.119; Sander 2057.
2° (297 x 195mm). Roman type, occasional Greek and Hebrew. 170 fine woodcuts, including 9 full-page, printer's device on title, repeated on final verso. 5- to 9-line initial spaces with guide-letter. (Very light dampstain at some lower corners.) Late 19th-century red morocco, panelled in blind and tooled in gold with Aldine anchor at centre of both sides, roll-tooled turn-ins, gilt edges, signed by Binda of Milan. Provenance: small initials 'CB' on first and last leaves; presentation inscription dated 1905 erased from flyleaf; Marquis Girolamo d'Adda (armorial bookplate); Charles Fairfax Murray (Catalogo dei libri posseduti da C. Fairfax Murray, ... provenienti dalla Bibliotheca del Marchese Girolamo d'Adda, 1902, no.1339).
SECOND EDITION, reprinting page-for-page Aldus's 1499 edition, widely considered the most beautiful book of the 15th century. The 1545 edition, printed by Aldus's heirs, re-using the exceptional series of woodcut illustrations. which have lost nothing in freshness. The Paduan miniaturist, Benedetto Bordone, has been advanced as the artist of the illustrations (two blocks are signed 'b'), but the attribution remains unproven. Six blocks have been re-cut: b4v, b5r (2), e2v, e5r and x2r. Despite its claim to be 'corrected', the text on fos. n1v and n8r has been transposed, as it was in the first edition. 'Cette réimpression est plus rare que l'édit. originale' (Sander). Adams C-2414; Mortimer Harvard Italian 131; Renouard, Alde, pp.133-34; Essling Pt. I, vol.2:2, no.119; Sander 2057.
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