Erasmus, Adagiorum, Venice, Heirs of Aldo & Torresano, 1520, Parisian brown morocco by Picard for Grolier

Erasmus, Desiderius. Erasmi Roterodami Adagiorum chiliades quatuor, centuriaeque totidem. Quibus etiam quinta additur imperfecta. (Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, September 1520)

Second, expanded Aldine edition of Erasmus's Adages, illuminated and bound for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard, Torresano's Parisian representative of the Aldine Press.

For further Grolier bindings, see lots 765, 840 and 849.

Folio (322 x 212 mm). Roman and Greek types, 54 lines plus headline. collation: A-B⁸ C¹⁰ a-z⁸ aa-pp⁸: 330 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and pp8v, numerous initial spaces with guide letters ranging from 3- to 7-lines. Illuminated and decorated in Paris for Jean Grolier: printer's devices illuminated in blue and silver, first lines of title and indices heightened in gold, guide-letters supplied in liquid gold, some with further red penwork decoration. (Top margins dampstained, small repair to extreme upper blank margins of s8-ff7.)

binding: Parisian olive morocco (329 x 226 mm) by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier (ca. 1545), richly gold-tooled, covers with border of repeated arabesque, inner frame of interlaced strapwork linking to central quatrelobe containing gilt-lettered title, large solid tools at angles and above and below quatrelobe, Grolier's "et amicorum" motto lettered at foot of front cover, back cover centrally lettered with his personal motto, traces of two pairs of ties, spine in compartments with six full and two half raised bands, richly gold-tooled and lettered in the seventeenth century, probably at direction of Méry de Vic or his descendants as a number of Grolier's bindings were similarly decorated, gilt edges. (Extensively but neatly restored and endpapers renewed for George Hibbert, short tear at head of spine, faded to brown at extremities, lettering on rear cover somewhat rubbed).

provenance: Jean Grolier de Servières, vicomte d'Aguisy (1489?-1565) — Méry de Vic, vicomte d'Ermenonville (1560-1622)

— Dominique de Vic (1588–1661) — Justin, Comte de MacCarthy-Reagh (1744-1811); Debure frères, Catalogue des livres rares et précieux de la bibliothèque de feu M. le comte de Mac-Carthy Reagh. Tome premier, II partie (Paris, 1815 [but sale held 27 January-6 May 1817]), lot 3647; purchased by — Thomas Payne, London, for Hibbert (FF 132) — George Hibbert (1757-1837); R. H. Evans, A catalogue of the library of George Hibbert, Esq., 16 March-6 June 1829, lot 2910; purchased by — Payne & Foss, London for Botfield (£20) — Beriah Botfield (1807–1863), acquired from Payne & Foss ("P. & F. Acquisitions p. 33") — Marquesses of Bath, family library (Longleat) — Christie's London, 13 June 2002, lot 28. acquisition: Purchased at Christie's via Robin Halwas. references: UCLA 187; Cataldi Palau 55; Edit16 18205; Renouard 89/2; USTC 828221; for the binding: Nixon, Bookbindings from the Library of Jean Grolier. A Loan Exhibition (London, 1965), no. 69 and pl. 63; Austin, The Library of Jean Grolier: A Preliminary Catalogue (New York, 1971), no. 174