Herodianus Syrus, Herodiani Historiarum, Venice, Heirs of Aldo & Torresano, 1524, Parisian binding for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard, ca. 1540

Herodianus Syrus. Herodiani Historiarum lib. VIII Graece pariter et Latine [Latin text only]. (Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, September 1524)

First Aldine edition of Herodian's Roman History, issued in two parts, Greek and Latin, with distinct signatures and pagination and individual title-pages and addresses to the reader by Andrea Asulani. The text was available in either a bilingual edition comprising both parts, or separately in either Greek or Latin editions. Grolier had apparently given up on learning Greek by the time he purchased this book—there were no Greek books in his final library—and he opted to take the Latin text only, supplemented by the leaf containing Asulani's prefatory letter to the Greek text. (See Anthony Hobson, "Three Plaquette Bindings and a German Collector" in Bibliophiles et reliures: mélanges offerts à Michel Wittock, ed. De Coster, Sorgeloos, and de Schepper [Brussels, 2006], pp. 265-269).

Illuminated and bound for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard. These simple yet elegant bindings favored by Grolier in the 1540s were formerly attributed to Claude de Picques, but the current consensus—following the researches of Annie Parent-Charon ("Nouveaux documents sur les relieurs parisiens du XVIe siècle," in Revue française d'histoire du livre, 1982, p. 389-408) and Anthony Hobson (Humanists and Bookbinders, pp. 267-271)—is that they are the product of the shop of Jean Picard, Torresano's Parisian representative of the Aldine Press. Picard bound as many two hundred volumes (including more than one hundred Aldine imprints) for Grolier prior to his bankruptcy in 1547, after which Grolier transferred his patronage to Gomar Estienne.

For further Grolier bindings, see lots 704, 840. For a further Grolier—Wittock lot, see 849.

8vo (168 x 98 mm, preserving deckle on several lower edges). Italic types, 30 lines plus headline. collation: 1⁸ (+π2) 2-11⁸ 12¹⁰: 99 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on 12 10v, numerous 3- and 6-line initial spaces with guide-letters. Illuminated and decorated in Paris for Jean Grolier: printer's devices illuminated in gold with red penwork decoration, guide-letters supplied in liquid gold, most with further red penwork. (Tiny, unobtrusive wormhole at lower margins of quires 2-8.)

binding: Parisian olive morocco (173 x 115 mm) by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier, ca. 1545, richly gold-tooled, covers paneled with border and frame of double gilt fillets, single gilt fillet rounding arc in corners, central undulating lozenge-cartouche composed of single gilt fillet, long leafy tool and bud and leaf tool, title gilt-lettered within the upper cartouche, Grolier’s personal motto (Portio mea Domine sit in terra viventium) within the lower, at foot of upper cover between the two pairs of fillets IO. GROLIERII ET AMICORVM, spine simply gilt ruled in eight compartments with five full and two half bands, vellum endleaves, additional contemporary flyleaves at front and back, gilt edges. (Head and foot of spine restored, some other minor and exceptionally fine restoration, one rear flyleaf detached.) Half brown morocco folding-case gilt, velvet-lined.

provenance: Jean Grolier de Servières, vicomte d'Aguisy (1489?-1565), supralibros, his name and motto on covers — [anonymous sale, Paris, May 1901?, as per Austin]; evidently purchased by — J. Pearson & Co., Very choice books including an extremely important series of historical bindings (London, [1902?]), p. 56, item 91 (450 guineas; "Grolier's copy, having the initial letters and the Aldine anchor illuminated in gold … It sold in Paris, May 1901, for 8,800 francs") — Junius Spencer Morgan (1867-1932) — Sigurd Wandel (1875–1947) and Gudrun Wandel (1882–1976), joint ex libris; Skandinavisk Antiquariat, Auktionskatalog over Prof. Sigurd Wandel's Samling, Copenhagen, 6 February 1923, lot 1497 and p. 117 (illustration) — L’Art Ancien, Bulletin X: Fine Italian Books, 15th and 16th Century (Lugano, 1924), item 2940 and Pl. I (frontispiece) (CHF 9000 — Jacques Rosenthal, Munich; sold to — Ernst Kyriss (1881–1974) — Karl & Faber, Auktion 18, Munich, 16–17 January 1940, lot 474, evidently consigned by Kyriss; purchased by — Antiquariat W. Henrich, Frankfurt am Main — Willy Dreyfus (1885–1977); Sotheby’s London, 14 March 1967, lot 108 (attributing the binding to Claude de Picques); purchased by — Georges Heilbrun, Paris (£1900) — Pierre Schiller — Ader Picard Tajan & Claude Guérin, Paris, 11 December 1981, lot 27; purchased by — unidentified owner (FF135,000) — Michel Wittock (1936–2020); Christie's Paris, Collection Michel Wittock. Troisième partie, 7 October 2005, lot 24 (€66,000). acquisition: Purchased at the Wittock sale via Robin Halwas. references: UCLA 227; Adams H377; Cataldi Palau 93; Edit16 22651; Renouard 98/2; USTC 835660; for the binding: Austin, no. 230; Cinq siècles d'ornements dans le décor extérieur du livre, 1515-1983 … Bibliotheca Wittockiana (Brussels, 1983), no. 19; A. Hobson, "Grolier's Bindings Classified by Workshop," in Renaissance Book Collecting, appendix 1.c, Jean Picard, no. 230; A. Hobson & Culot, Italian and French 16th-century Bookbindings (Brussels, 1991), no. 27; Culot, "La reliure en Italie et en France," in Bibliotheca Wittockiana, Musea Nostra—38 (Brussels, 1996), p. 29