Sallust, Venice, Aldus, 1509, later olive morocco gilt by Clarke, Utterson copy

Gaius Sallustius Crispus

De coniuratione Catilinae. Eiusdem de bello Iugurthino... (Venice: in the house of Aldus, and Andrea Torresani, April 1509)

8vo (154 x 97mm.), woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final verso, both with later colouring, italic text, initials supplied in later colour, grained olive morocco gilt in period style by J. Clarke, spine gilt in compartments, edges gilt and gauffered, small repair to lower corner of k8

The first Aldine edition of Sallust's two historical works, along with Cicero's speeches against Sallust and Catilina, Porcius Latro's also against Catilina, and some speeches taken from Sallust's now fragmentary Histories. The dedicatee is Bartolomeo d'Alviano, a mercenary commander of the Venetian forces, who had won a victory against the Imperial army in March 1508, only to be defeated the month after this work was printed, leading to a suspension of Aldus's printing activities (and indeed much Venetian trade) for three years.

PROVENANCE

"C.&P. Renouard.I.133. Illuminated Capitals", ink notes on flyleaf leaf; Edward Vernon Utterson (c.1776-1856), white morocco gilt booklabel, sale, Sotheby's, 20 March 1857, lot 1432 (describing the binding as "elaborately tooled after a very chaste Italian pattern")

LITERATURE

Edit16 373431; Renouard 57/3; UCLA 103