Caesar, Gaius Julius: Commentarii.
Edited by Johannes Andreas de Bussis, bishop of Aleria.
Rome: In domo Petri de Maximis [Conradus Sweynheym and Arnoldus Pannartz], 12 May 1469.
Fol. [1-210 312 4-1210 1312 14-1510 168 176]. [168] leaves, 1/1 and 17/6 blank.
ISTC ic00016000; Goff C16; BMC IV 7 (IB. 17123); Bod-inc C-004; GW 5863; CIBN C-4; BSB-Ink C-23.
| GIP number: | C1 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Be.2.3 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Provenance: |
Guicciardini family of Florence (15th/16th century): partially effaced painted coat of arms in lower margin of 1/2r “d’azzurro a tre cornici da caccia d’argento, imboccati e guarniti d’oro e legati di rosso, ordinati l’uno sull l’altro” i.e. on a blue field three silver hunting horns with red strings, the tips of the horns being golden with gold ornamention (the arms kindly identified by Dr Martin Davies); for other examples of painted Guicciardini arms see BL Harley 2857 and Houghton Library Inc. 6345.5 (Walsh 2971); see also Ceramelli Papiani Collection at Archivio di Stato di Firenze. William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter at the Gaignat sale through his agent, Jean-Baptiste Dessain, for 500 livres; see 'Dessain-Hunter correspondence' (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 24r). |
| Binding: | Netherlands, early 18th-century gold-tooled red goatskin; covers decorated to a two panel design; the inner panel, which is formed by a roll resembling a chain, is decorated at its four outer corners with an ornament formed from drawer-handle, fleur-de-lys and floral tools, points and stars; the frame of the outer panel is formed by a roll incorporating a bird, flowers and leaves; gold-tooled spine; marbled endpapers; gilt-edged leaves. For this and a group of over 70 similar bindings, see Mirjam M. Foot, ‘An eighteenth-century incunable collector in The Hague’, in M. Davies, 'Incunabula: studies in fifteenth-century printed books presented to Lotte Hellinga' (London: 1999), 371-87, Appendix no. 5. Size: 337 x 240 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 326 x 229 mm. |
| Annotations: | Copious marginal annotations in a humanist hand (mainly extracting keywords and phrases) in quires 1-13; headings for each book supplied in the same hand; number “512” in ink in an 18th-century(?) hand on second front flyleaf. |
| Decoration: | Seven-line initial “G” on 1/2r supplied in gold on a square ground of white-vine decoration defined in pink, green, and blue, which extends into the inner margin; in the lower margin of 1/2r a gold roundel containing the arms of the Guicciardini family of Florence (see Provenance above), the shield set on a pink background and the roundel surrounded by white-vine decoration; other initials supplied throughout in blue. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the blank leaves 1/1 and 17/6. |
