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VESALIUS, Andreas (1514-64). De humani corporis fabrica, lib. VII. Lyons: Jean de Tournes, 1552.
2 volumes, 16º (118 x 72mm and [vol. II] 120 x 74mm; binding size: 123 x 81mm and [vol. II] 127 x 80 mm). Four small woodcuts of the cranium on i1v and i2r-v, printer's devices on titles [Cartier 'Vipres o.'] and on versos of last leaf in vol. I and penultimate leaf in vol. II (Cartier 'Prisme d'), six-line woodcut arabesque initials, matching woodcut head-pieces. Error on printer's note on a1v of vol. I corrected in ink, perhaps by the printer. Ruled in red throughout. (Lower fore-corner of vol. I title a little frayed, short closed marginal tear to II:z8.) Bound c. 1594-1597 for Pietro Duodo by the Parisian ‘Atelier de la seconde palmette’ in gold-tooled citron morocco, covers with a border of leafy sprays surrounding a panel filled with laurel-branch medallions around one of six different floral tools, each cover centred with a larger medallion containing Duodo's arms on the upper covers, and, on the lower covers, Duodo's device and motto, flat spines similarly gilt with four flower medallions, author’s name and volume number tooled in central medallion, gilt edges; modern cloth folding cases. Provenance: PIETRO DUODO (1554-1611), Venetian ambassador to the Court of Henri IV from 1594 - 1597 (binding) -- 19th-century shelfmark or lot label on front free endpaper to vol. I, ‘365/2’; ‘991’ in ink on front pastedown of vol. II – Haskell F. Norman (bookplate, his sale, Christie’s New York, 18 March 1998, lot 215) – Joseph A. Freilich (label, his sale, Sotheby’s New York, 11 January 2001, lot 537).
THE FINEST EXTANT COPY OF THE 1552 VESALIUS, IN A FINE FANFARE BINDING FOR PIETRO DUODO. THE NORMAN-FREILICH COPY.
This unauthorized pocket-sized second edition, which closely follows the text of the 1543 edition and reproduces four of the woodcuts, was one of a series of small-format editions of texts of proven success produced by Jean de Tournes I from the mid-1540s to the 1560s. During the previous decade, Lyons had become a centre for the publication of pocket editions of the medical classics, usually translated into French.
The present copy, one of about 100 small-format editions purchased by Pietro Duodo during his ambassadorship in Paris, whose nearly uniform bindings he commissioned from a single Parisian atelier, is undoubtedly the finest copy extant of the 1552 Vesalius. At their first appearance on the market at the end of the 18th century, these exquisite little red-ruled books with their semis of floral medallions were attributed to the library of Marguerite de Valois. In 1925 Bouland identified the true owner as the Venetian diplomat Pietro Duodo, but the attribution to a specific bindery remained speculative, the execution of the bindings being generally ascribed to the catch-all shop of Clovis Eve. In 1979 a vase tool used on only two known examples of Duodo's books was identified by Bernard Breslauer (Martin Breslauer catalogues 104/195) as belonging to the bindery named by G.D. Hobson (in Les Reliures à la fanfare) the ‘Atelier de la seconde Palmette’, the most prolific of the late 16th and early 17th-century Parisian binderies specializing in the ‘fanfare’ decor. As an active diplomat who had already resided in Poland and was later to serve as ambassador to Prague, London and the Vatican, Duodo's aim in his Paris buying was to form a portable gentleman's library. The 90 titles (in 133 volumes) recorded by Raphael Esmerian reveal a typical humanist private library. Most of the texts are in Greek or Latin, and the subject areas covered, distinguished by differently coloured morocco, are predominantly literary (72 volumes, olive-brown morocco), or relate to theology, philosophy and history (46 volumes, red morocco), but the library also includes a small group of books on botany and medicine (15 volumes, citron morocco). Duodo apparently never entered into possession of his freshly bound library, being suddenly recalled to Italy in 1597, and the books remained in Paris, untouched for 200 years, until at the time of the Revolution they gradually began to appear on the market.
Norman 2138; Adams V-604; Cartier De Tournes 235; Cushing VI.A.-2 (noting that copies with both volumes in matching bindings are rare); NLM/Durling 4578; Waller 9900; Wellcome I, 6561; Bouland, ‘Livres aux armes de Pierre Duodo’, Bulletin du bibliophile (1920): 66-80; Bibliothèque Raphael Esmerian, Part I (6 June 1972), pp. 94-96, lots 59-61; Needham, Twelve Centuries of Bookbinding 98; M. von Arnim, ed., Europäische Einbandkunst aus sechs Jahrhunderten (Schweinfurt 1992), 72.
2 volumes, 16º (118 x 72mm and [vol. II] 120 x 74mm; binding size: 123 x 81mm and [vol. II] 127 x 80 mm). Four small woodcuts of the cranium on i1v and i2r-v, printer's devices on titles [Cartier 'Vipres o.'] and on versos of last leaf in vol. I and penultimate leaf in vol. II (Cartier 'Prisme d'), six-line woodcut arabesque initials, matching woodcut head-pieces. Error on printer's note on a1v of vol. I corrected in ink, perhaps by the printer. Ruled in red throughout. (Lower fore-corner of vol. I title a little frayed, short closed marginal tear to II:z8.) Bound c. 1594-1597 for Pietro Duodo by the Parisian ‘Atelier de la seconde palmette’ in gold-tooled citron morocco, covers with a border of leafy sprays surrounding a panel filled with laurel-branch medallions around one of six different floral tools, each cover centred with a larger medallion containing Duodo's arms on the upper covers, and, on the lower covers, Duodo's device and motto, flat spines similarly gilt with four flower medallions, author’s name and volume number tooled in central medallion, gilt edges; modern cloth folding cases. Provenance: PIETRO DUODO (1554-1611), Venetian ambassador to the Court of Henri IV from 1594 - 1597 (binding) -- 19th-century shelfmark or lot label on front free endpaper to vol. I, ‘365/2’; ‘991’ in ink on front pastedown of vol. II – Haskell F. Norman (bookplate, his sale, Christie’s New York, 18 March 1998, lot 215) – Joseph A. Freilich (label, his sale, Sotheby’s New York, 11 January 2001, lot 537).
THE FINEST EXTANT COPY OF THE 1552 VESALIUS, IN A FINE FANFARE BINDING FOR PIETRO DUODO. THE NORMAN-FREILICH COPY.
This unauthorized pocket-sized second edition, which closely follows the text of the 1543 edition and reproduces four of the woodcuts, was one of a series of small-format editions of texts of proven success produced by Jean de Tournes I from the mid-1540s to the 1560s. During the previous decade, Lyons had become a centre for the publication of pocket editions of the medical classics, usually translated into French.
The present copy, one of about 100 small-format editions purchased by Pietro Duodo during his ambassadorship in Paris, whose nearly uniform bindings he commissioned from a single Parisian atelier, is undoubtedly the finest copy extant of the 1552 Vesalius. At their first appearance on the market at the end of the 18th century, these exquisite little red-ruled books with their semis of floral medallions were attributed to the library of Marguerite de Valois. In 1925 Bouland identified the true owner as the Venetian diplomat Pietro Duodo, but the attribution to a specific bindery remained speculative, the execution of the bindings being generally ascribed to the catch-all shop of Clovis Eve. In 1979 a vase tool used on only two known examples of Duodo's books was identified by Bernard Breslauer (Martin Breslauer catalogues 104/195) as belonging to the bindery named by G.D. Hobson (in Les Reliures à la fanfare) the ‘Atelier de la seconde Palmette’, the most prolific of the late 16th and early 17th-century Parisian binderies specializing in the ‘fanfare’ decor. As an active diplomat who had already resided in Poland and was later to serve as ambassador to Prague, London and the Vatican, Duodo's aim in his Paris buying was to form a portable gentleman's library. The 90 titles (in 133 volumes) recorded by Raphael Esmerian reveal a typical humanist private library. Most of the texts are in Greek or Latin, and the subject areas covered, distinguished by differently coloured morocco, are predominantly literary (72 volumes, olive-brown morocco), or relate to theology, philosophy and history (46 volumes, red morocco), but the library also includes a small group of books on botany and medicine (15 volumes, citron morocco). Duodo apparently never entered into possession of his freshly bound library, being suddenly recalled to Italy in 1597, and the books remained in Paris, untouched for 200 years, until at the time of the Revolution they gradually began to appear on the market.
Norman 2138; Adams V-604; Cartier De Tournes 235; Cushing VI.A.-2 (noting that copies with both volumes in matching bindings are rare); NLM/Durling 4578; Waller 9900; Wellcome I, 6561; Bouland, ‘Livres aux armes de Pierre Duodo’, Bulletin du bibliophile (1920): 66-80; Bibliothèque Raphael Esmerian, Part I (6 June 1972), pp. 94-96, lots 59-61; Needham, Twelve Centuries of Bookbinding 98; M. von Arnim, ed., Europäische Einbandkunst aus sechs Jahrhunderten (Schweinfurt 1992), 72.
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