Details
April 1501
PICO, Giovanni Francesco (1470-1533, Lord of Mirandola, Count of Concordia). Liber de imaginatione. Super-chancery 4° (202 x 141mm). Collation: *4 (1r title, 1v-2r Aldo's dedication to Alberto Pio, 2v-4v Pico's dedication to Emperor Maximilian I); A-D8 E4 (text, incipit: Scripturis nobis de Imaginatione, E3v register and colophon, E4 blank). 39 leaves (without the final blank). Roman type 115mm (lower case of Griffo's 2:114 with new majuscules). 22 lines. Initial-space with guide-letter. (Outer margins somewhat affected by damp.)
PREFACE: Nothing is a greater incentive to study and emulation than the example of one's ancestors, be it military or scholarly. The Romans in antiquity used to keep statues of illustrious forefathers at home in order to stimulate the young to greater glory, and only in Venice does one still see public statues of famous men. Pio too feels inspired to pursue philosophical studies by the learning of his family, notably his grandfather Alberto and his uncle Giovanni Pico. The latter's example has also spurred Pio's cousin Gianfrancesco della Mirandola onto literature; he has already written as much as his uncle, almost all of it published. Aldus is pleased therefore to dedicate this book on imagination by Pico to Pio, to whom he owes everything and who will be most appreciative of the treatise itself, of the fact that his cousin wrote it and that Aldus printed it.
BINDING: contemporary Italian calf, decorated in blind with knotwork tools, gilt edges, (remboîtage, repaired and worn). No other evidence of provenance.
FIRST EDITION OF CONSIDERABLE RARITY. This short philosophical work is rather conventional and Aristotelian, and its lack of originality might have prevented Aldus from publishing it, had it not been for its author's family connections to Giovanni Pico the elder and Alberto Pio. He executed it as the typographical twin to Bembo's De aetna of five years earlier (lot 4). No copy has apparently been offered at auction since the G.S. Allen sale at Christie's more than thirteen years ago (9-xii-81, lot 85). COMPLETE, with the four preliminary leaves that are lacking in a number of copies (e.g. Aldine 350 in the Marciana, Venice) and were omitted in the register. Isaac 12762; Dionisotti & Orlandi XXVIII; Murphy 33; Sansoviniana 42; Laurenziana 44; R 32:11
PICO, Giovanni Francesco (1470-1533, Lord of Mirandola, Count of Concordia). Liber de imaginatione. Super-chancery 4° (202 x 141mm). Collation: *4 (1r title, 1v-2r Aldo's dedication to Alberto Pio, 2v-4v Pico's dedication to Emperor Maximilian I); A-D8 E4 (text, incipit: Scripturis nobis de Imaginatione, E3v register and colophon, E4 blank). 39 leaves (without the final blank). Roman type 115mm (lower case of Griffo's 2:114 with new majuscules). 22 lines. Initial-space with guide-letter. (Outer margins somewhat affected by damp.)
PREFACE: Nothing is a greater incentive to study and emulation than the example of one's ancestors, be it military or scholarly. The Romans in antiquity used to keep statues of illustrious forefathers at home in order to stimulate the young to greater glory, and only in Venice does one still see public statues of famous men. Pio too feels inspired to pursue philosophical studies by the learning of his family, notably his grandfather Alberto and his uncle Giovanni Pico. The latter's example has also spurred Pio's cousin Gianfrancesco della Mirandola onto literature; he has already written as much as his uncle, almost all of it published. Aldus is pleased therefore to dedicate this book on imagination by Pico to Pio, to whom he owes everything and who will be most appreciative of the treatise itself, of the fact that his cousin wrote it and that Aldus printed it.
BINDING: contemporary Italian calf, decorated in blind with knotwork tools, gilt edges, (remboîtage, repaired and worn). No other evidence of provenance.
FIRST EDITION OF CONSIDERABLE RARITY. This short philosophical work is rather conventional and Aristotelian, and its lack of originality might have prevented Aldus from publishing it, had it not been for its author's family connections to Giovanni Pico the elder and Alberto Pio. He executed it as the typographical twin to Bembo's De aetna of five years earlier (lot 4). No copy has apparently been offered at auction since the G.S. Allen sale at Christie's more than thirteen years ago (9-xii-81, lot 85). COMPLETE, with the four preliminary leaves that are lacking in a number of copies (e.g. Aldine 350 in the Marciana, Venice) and were omitted in the register. Isaac 12762; Dionisotti & Orlandi XXVIII; Murphy 33; Sansoviniana 42; Laurenziana 44; R 32:11