Cicero, Marcus Tullius: De oratore.
[Venice: Vindelinus de Spira, ca. 1470]
4to. [18 26 310 4-138 146]. [110] leaves, the first and last blank.
ISTC ic00657000; Goff C657; BMC V 155; Bod-inc C-229; GW 6745.
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Bg.2.9 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Variant: | 1/2r, lines 1-2: “... In Libros De || Oratore ...”, not as in BMC and GW “... In Libros De Ora=||tore ...” |
| Note: | 3/1.10 misbound as the middle sheet of gathering 2. |
| Note: | Printer's pin-holes visible. |
| Provenance: | Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV: Gaignat sale, 1769; lot 1470 in Guillaume de Bure, 'Bibliographie instructive: supplément ... ou catalogue des livres de feu M. L.J. Gaignat,' 2 vols (Paris: 1769). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter at the Gaignat sale through his agent, Jean-Baptiste Dessain, for 49 livres 1 sou; see 'Dessain-Hunter correspondence' (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 23r). University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest, 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “A.7.24”. |
| Binding: | France, 18th-century red morocco decorated with triple gold fillets; gold-tooled spine; marbled endpapers; gilt-edged leaves; fleur-de-lys watermark on front flyleaf and countermark “I V” on rear flyleaf. Size: 281 x 200 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 273 x 191 mm. |
| Annotations: | Frequent marginal annotations (mainly extracting keywords) in capital letters in a humanist hand - all heavily washed out; 18th-century shelfmark(?) “b9(?)” in pencil on rear free endpaper; number “1025” in ink in an 18th-century hand on front free endpaper. |
| Decoration: | Seven-line initial “C” on 1/2r supplied in gold on a square ground of white-vine decoration defined in blue, crimson and green with white-dot embellishment; also on 1/2r is a lower border of similar decoration edged with gold and red which contains at its centre a green laurel wreath (left blank for a coat of arms), and the upper and inner borders of 1/2r are composed of alternate bands of green and purple laurel leaves with the same gold and red edging; six-line initial “C” on 1/4v and six-line initial “M” on 5/2r (f. 34r) supplied in gold on a blue, green and crimson square ground embellished with white-dot decoration; six-line initial “I” on 10/8r (f. 80r) supplied in gold on a blue rectangular ground with white-dot decoration. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the first and final blank leaves. |
