LEONICO THOMEO, Niccolò (1446/7-1531). De varia historia. Lyons: Sebastien Gryphe I, 1555.
16° (117 x 75mm). Woodcut printer's device on title [Baudrier 2bis], woodcut initials. (Occasional light marking, variable light browning and spotting.)
BINDING: French late 16th-century limp vellum gilt, covers with gilt and red- and black-painted arms of Gian Federigo Madruzzo within a strapwork cartouche [Guigard II, p.334], on a semé of fleurs de lis, deep, hatched strapwork cornerpieces, single fillet border, yapp fore-edges with gilt foliate rolls, spine gilt in compartments with hatched foliate tools, lettered in manuscript, gilt and gauffered edges (paint on arms a little rubbed, covers lightly marked and a little cockled and bowed, lacking ties, a few small chips at edges and on spine, short splits on hinges, hinges starting to separate from spine of binding). P. Culot, 'Une reliure française au décor doré, frappée aux armoiries de Gian Federico Madruzzo (1531-1586)', in Bulletin du bibliophile, 1997, pp.363-366).
PROVENANCE: Gian Federigo Madruzzo (binding) -- Pietro Buoninsegni, Sienna, 1814 (booklabel) -- Io. Gio. Fracomonti (pencilled inscriptions on free endpapers recording the gift of the volume from Alfier Gio. Fracomonti, 8 February 1736) -- Emilio Pittaluga, Florence -- Giorgio Pittaluga (sale Christie's Rome, 10 June 1997, lot 90).
A PAINTED GILT BINDING FOR GIAN FEDERIGO MADRUZZO (1531-1586), for whom see lot 15. The arms on the present binding are encircled by the collar of a knight of the order of the Santissima Annunziata, and thus it can be dated to the period between 1569 (when Madruzzo was made a knight of the order), and his death in 1586. This edition of De historia varia is a reprint of the 1532 Gryphius edition. Adams L-505; Baudrier VIII, p.280