细节
ALBERTI, Leandro (1479-1553). Descrittione di tutta l'Italia. Bologna: Anselmo Giaccarelli, 1550.
2° (302 x 209 mm). Collation: *4 A8 B-Z 2A-Z 3A-Z 4A-I6 a-d6 e4. 504 leaves, A8 and 4I6 blank. Roman type, shoulder notes in italic type. Woodcut printer's device on title, engraved medallion portrait on *4v, 8- and 5-line historiated woodcut initials. Ruled in red throughout. (Title creased and with lower blank margin repaired, 4 leaves with minor marginal tears, occasional foxing or browning.) CONTEMPORARY PARISIAN BINDING FROM THE SHOP OF THE "CUPID'S BOW BINDER", brown calf, originally painted and silver-gilt, covers with blind-tooled interlacing strapwork panel and central cartouche (left empty), the outer panel inset with small leafy tools and open petal tools, the whole decorated with swirling gougework tendrils impressed in blind and punctuated by openwork arabesque tools with painted stippled infill, spine in seven compartments each with a repeated open foliate tool, edges gauffred and gilt, title lettered in ink on lower edge, later(?) lettering to upper edge (lacking two pairs of ties, rubbed, a few scrapes to covers, hinges split showing old reinforcement).
Provenance: "Giovanni Francesco Arma e de suoi amici", contemporary inscription on title (crossed out).
FIRST EDITION of Alberti's history of Italy, in a luxury copy bound for a wealthy owner very soon after the book's publication. Painted strapwork bindings with open-work tools and stippling were at the height of fashion in Paris in the early 1550s. The Cupid's Bow bindery, whose artisans have still not been identified by modern bookbinding scholars, was active from about 1547 through 1556. The output of the bindery is uneven; although bindings from this atelier were executed for exacting collectors such as Jean Grolier and Marc Laurin, the commissions of at least the former collector seem to have been due to the unavailability of his preferred binder of the period, Gommar Estienne, who had recently been appointed royal binder and was presumably too busy to meet all of Grolier's demands (cf. Hobson, Humanists and Bookbinders, p. 271, and Nixon, Sixteenth-Century Gold-Tooled Bindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library, pp. 130-140). A majority of the bindings from the atelier were of brown calf, apparently thought to be best suited to the painted strapwork decor then in vogue. Employed on this binding are tools #8, 9a, 9b, 10a, 10b, 13, 16, 17, 24, and 26 (cf. Nixon, ed., Bookbindings from the Library of Jean Grolier, London: British Museum, 1965, pl. G-I). A single tool, appearing inside the inner panel of the covers and repeated on the spine, is not recorded by Nixon. The fact that the central cartouches of this copy, usually filled with the gold-lettered title and/or owner's name or motto, were left blank, suggests that the binding was either intended as a gift or was simply not completed.
BM/STC Italian, p. 14.
2° (302 x 209 mm). Collation: *4 A8 B-Z 2A-Z 3A-Z 4A-I6 a-d6 e4. 504 leaves, A8 and 4I6 blank. Roman type, shoulder notes in italic type. Woodcut printer's device on title, engraved medallion portrait on *4v, 8- and 5-line historiated woodcut initials. Ruled in red throughout. (Title creased and with lower blank margin repaired, 4 leaves with minor marginal tears, occasional foxing or browning.) CONTEMPORARY PARISIAN BINDING FROM THE SHOP OF THE "CUPID'S BOW BINDER", brown calf, originally painted and silver-gilt, covers with blind-tooled interlacing strapwork panel and central cartouche (left empty), the outer panel inset with small leafy tools and open petal tools, the whole decorated with swirling gougework tendrils impressed in blind and punctuated by openwork arabesque tools with painted stippled infill, spine in seven compartments each with a repeated open foliate tool, edges gauffred and gilt, title lettered in ink on lower edge, later(?) lettering to upper edge (lacking two pairs of ties, rubbed, a few scrapes to covers, hinges split showing old reinforcement).
Provenance: "Giovanni Francesco Arma e de suoi amici", contemporary inscription on title (crossed out).
FIRST EDITION of Alberti's history of Italy, in a luxury copy bound for a wealthy owner very soon after the book's publication. Painted strapwork bindings with open-work tools and stippling were at the height of fashion in Paris in the early 1550s. The Cupid's Bow bindery, whose artisans have still not been identified by modern bookbinding scholars, was active from about 1547 through 1556. The output of the bindery is uneven; although bindings from this atelier were executed for exacting collectors such as Jean Grolier and Marc Laurin, the commissions of at least the former collector seem to have been due to the unavailability of his preferred binder of the period, Gommar Estienne, who had recently been appointed royal binder and was presumably too busy to meet all of Grolier's demands (cf. Hobson, Humanists and Bookbinders, p. 271, and Nixon, Sixteenth-Century Gold-Tooled Bindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library, pp. 130-140). A majority of the bindings from the atelier were of brown calf, apparently thought to be best suited to the painted strapwork decor then in vogue. Employed on this binding are tools #8, 9a, 9b, 10a, 10b, 13, 16, 17, 24, and 26 (cf. Nixon, ed., Bookbindings from the Library of Jean Grolier, London: British Museum, 1965, pl. G-I). A single tool, appearing inside the inner panel of the covers and repeated on the spine, is not recorded by Nixon. The fact that the central cartouches of this copy, usually filled with the gold-lettered title and/or owner's name or motto, were left blank, suggests that the binding was either intended as a gift or was simply not completed.
BM/STC Italian, p. 14.