Lucanus, Marcus Annaeus. M. Annei Lucani De bello civili libri decem. Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546
Nine bindings decorated with this armorial insignia are known (D’oro, ad una torre di rosso, aperta e finestrata di nero, piantata sopra una terrazza di verde, e sormontata da un’aquila di nero, imbeccata e membrata di rosso, coronata d’oro). They cover books published at Lyon, by Sébastien Gryphe in the years 1544–1551. All are in sextodecimo format, bound in various shades of red goatskin, with a title lettered at the head of the spine, and ruled in red. The bindings could be Italian or French; Hobson and Culot, in Italian and French 16th-Century Bookbindings, accept them as French (p. 99).
Although the bindings do not look like the products of a single shop, it has been suggested that they formed part of a travelling library. Apart from the tools used to produce the insignia (tower and eagle)—which may have been retained by the collector and passed between binders—there are no tools in common, and the forwarding and finishing vary. If indeed from a travelling library, then it was not a library bound as a single order, but one assembled over time.
The volumes contain no inscription, or other clue to the identity of their first owner. The arms have been identified as those of a “Cardinal Torregiano” and of (unnamed) members of the Della Torre, Giustiniani, and Novarini families. They match most closely the Novarini of Verona. The family is obscure, though flourishing from the fourteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, and its arms have not been noticed on any contemporary surface. Members known by name include Girolamo, patron of an altar in the Convento S. Girolamo (1504); Antonio, fl. 1524; Giovanni Francesco, fl. 1558; and Giovanni Paolo, Giudice di Collegio, 1588–1589.
The books seem to have come onto the market in the 1860s. One has an ownership inscription dated 1859 on an endleaf (no. 9 on the list below); six were offered in a fixed price sale catalogue of an unidentified Parisian bookseller in the 1860s, then in an auction in Paris of the stock of the bookseller Giovanni Gancia in 1868 (nos. 1–3, 5–7).
Bindings Decorated with the Tower and Eagle Armorial Insignia
(1) Decimus Magnus Ausonius, Decii Ausonii Burdigalensis viri consularis Opuscula Varia (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1548). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Bibliotheca Brookeriana (to be offered in a future sale).
(2) Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Opera. Ad castigatissimi cujusque exemplaris fidem quam accuratissime restituta (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1551). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Giovanni Gancia, Brighton & Paris; Delbergue-Cormont & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. G. Gancia composée en partie de livres de la première bibliothèque du Cardinal Mazarin et d’ouvrages précieux, Paris, 27 April-2 May 1868, lot 440 — L. Potier, Paris - bought in sale. Current location not traced.
(3) Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Iunii Iuvenalis, & Auli Persii Flacci Satyrae (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Giovanni Gancia, Brighton & Paris; Delbergue-Cormont & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. G. Gancia composée en partie de livres de la première bibliothèque du Cardinal Mazarin et d’ouvrages précieux, Paris, 27 April-2 May 1868, lot 448 — Vincent - bought in sale. Current location not traced.
(4) Titus Livius, Titi Livii Patavini latinae historiae principis Decas quarta (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1548). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). François, comte Chandon de Briailles (1892-1953); Maurice Rheims & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Bibliothèque de M. le Comte C. de X …, 1ère partie: Précieuses reliures armoriées ou ornées des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, manuscrits, Paris, 2-3 December 1954, lot 332 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 13,100). Current location not traced.
(5) Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, M. Annei Lucani De bello civili libri decem (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). The volume offered here.
(6) Titus Lucretius Carus, Lucretii Cari poetae, ac philosophi vetustiss. De rerum natura libri sex (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Giovanni Gancia, Brighton & Paris; Delbergue-Cormont & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. G. Gancia composée en partie de livres de la première bibliothèque du Cardinal Mazarin et d’ouvrages précieux, Paris, 27 April-2 May 1868, lot 460 — Lortic - bought in sale. Current location not traced.
(7) Marcus Valerius Martialis, M. Val. Martialis Epigrammaton libri XIIII (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Bibliotheca Brookeriana (to be offered in a future sale).
(8) Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus, De bello Punico libri septemdecim (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1547). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Unidentified owner, inscription “Joannis [?] Paulucci” on title — Emil Hirsch Antiquariat, Munich; their Katalog 15: Buch-Einbände. Litteratur und alte Originale (Munich [1897]), item 33 & Pl. 12 — Hector Marie Auguste de Backer (1843-1925); Fernand Lair-Dubreuil & Librairie Giraud-Badin, Bibliothèque de feu M. Hector de Backer. Deuxième partie, Paris, 28-31 March 1927, lot 2903 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 820) — Librairie Giraud-Badin, Paris; their Catalogue 11: Catalogue de livres anciens en vente au prix marqués (Paris 1929), item 1397 — Henri, comte Chandon de Briailles (1898-1937), exlibris “au C.te Chandon de Briailles” on free endpaper; François, comte Chandon de Briailles (1892-1953); Maurice Rheims & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Bibliothèque de M. le Comte C. de X… Précieuses reliures armoriées ou ornées XVIe et XVIIe siècles; Manuscrits, Paris, 2-3 December 1954, lot 306 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 32,100) — André Poursin, Paris — unidentified owner (ownership note in the volume, dated 1965: “Ensuite propriété de la famille Chandon de Briailles, ce livre a été acheté par la librairie Poursin, qui l’s vendu”) — Ader Picard Tajan, Manuscrits et livres anciens, Paris, 11 December 1981, lot 69 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 4000) — Michel Wittock (1936-2020); Christie’s, The Michel Wittock collection, Part I: Important Renaissance bookbindings, London, 7 July 2004, lot 108 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (£10,755). Current location not traced.Hobson & Culot, op. cit., no. 40.
(9) Publius Terentius Afer, Publii Terentii Afri comoediae. Multo majore quam hactenus unquam, vigilantia repurgatae (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1544). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Bibliotheca Brookeriana (to be offered in a future sale).
16mo (117 x 71mm). Italic type, 29 line plus headline. collation: a–s8: 144 leaves (s8 blank). Gryphe's woodcut device on title-page, a few woodcut initials. (m3, m4 restored at lower fore-edge corners with catchwords supplied in facsimile, inscription washed from foot of title-page.)
binding: Northern Italian(?) russet goatskin (121 x 77 mm), ca. 1550, probably for a member of the Novarini family, early fanfare style, the fanfare ribbon stained a deeper red than the rest of the binding giving the appearance of an inlay, the ribbon within double gilt fillets emerging into quatrefoils at top and bottom and half-quatrefoils at sides which in turn emerge into center oval, quatrefoils contain gilt leafy branches, central oval contains arms consisting of tower on grassy field surmounted by spread eagle crowned, spine with 4 full bands, hatched in gilt, one-line title “LVCA” in top compartment, fleuron in others, edges gilt and with ropework gauffering around sides. (Extremities a little rubbed.)
provenance: probably Novarini, family library, Verona (armorial supralibros) — [Antoine-Laurent Potier?] (Catalogue de la Bibliothèque d’un amateur [Paris, n.d., after 1865], p. 60, FF 50: “Belle et ancienne reliure du temps, aux armes sur les plats: une tour surmontée d’un aigle couronné. [Cardinal Torrigiani]”) — Giovanni Gancia, Brighton & Paris (Delbergue-Cormont & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. G. Gancia composée en partie de livres de la première bibliothèque du Cardinal Mazarin et d’ouvrages précieux, Paris, 27 April–2 May 1868, lot 455), purchased by — Dupain (?) (FF 31) — Sotheby’s, Paris, 29 November 2007, lot 455. acquisition: Purchased at Sotheby’s through Robin Halwas.
references: FB 78188; USTC 149544; Baudrier, VIII, p.214; Gültlingen, V, p.154: 942.
Lucanus, Marcus Annaeus. M. Annei Lucani De bello civili libri decem. Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546
Nine bindings decorated with this armorial insignia are known (D’oro, ad una torre di rosso, aperta e finestrata di nero, piantata sopra una terrazza di verde, e sormontata da un’aquila di nero, imbeccata e membrata di rosso, coronata d’oro). They cover books published at Lyon, by Sébastien Gryphe in the years 1544–1551. All are in sextodecimo format, bound in various shades of red goatskin, with a title lettered at the head of the spine, and ruled in red. The bindings could be Italian or French; Hobson and Culot, in Italian and French 16th-Century Bookbindings, accept them as French (p. 99).
Although the bindings do not look like the products of a single shop, it has been suggested that they formed part of a travelling library. Apart from the tools used to produce the insignia (tower and eagle)—which may have been retained by the collector and passed between binders—there are no tools in common, and the forwarding and finishing vary. If indeed from a travelling library, then it was not a library bound as a single order, but one assembled over time.
The volumes contain no inscription, or other clue to the identity of their first owner. The arms have been identified as those of a “Cardinal Torregiano” and of (unnamed) members of the Della Torre, Giustiniani, and Novarini families. They match most closely the Novarini of Verona. The family is obscure, though flourishing from the fourteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, and its arms have not been noticed on any contemporary surface. Members known by name include Girolamo, patron of an altar in the Convento S. Girolamo (1504); Antonio, fl. 1524; Giovanni Francesco, fl. 1558; and Giovanni Paolo, Giudice di Collegio, 1588–1589.
The books seem to have come onto the market in the 1860s. One has an ownership inscription dated 1859 on an endleaf (no. 9 on the list below); six were offered in a fixed price sale catalogue of an unidentified Parisian bookseller in the 1860s, then in an auction in Paris of the stock of the bookseller Giovanni Gancia in 1868 (nos. 1–3, 5–7).
Bindings Decorated with the Tower and Eagle Armorial Insignia
(1) Decimus Magnus Ausonius, Decii Ausonii Burdigalensis viri consularis Opuscula Varia (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1548). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Bibliotheca Brookeriana (to be offered in a future sale).
(2) Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Opera. Ad castigatissimi cujusque exemplaris fidem quam accuratissime restituta (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1551). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Giovanni Gancia, Brighton & Paris; Delbergue-Cormont & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. G. Gancia composée en partie de livres de la première bibliothèque du Cardinal Mazarin et d’ouvrages précieux, Paris, 27 April-2 May 1868, lot 440 — L. Potier, Paris - bought in sale. Current location not traced.
(3) Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Iunii Iuvenalis, & Auli Persii Flacci Satyrae (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Giovanni Gancia, Brighton & Paris; Delbergue-Cormont & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. G. Gancia composée en partie de livres de la première bibliothèque du Cardinal Mazarin et d’ouvrages précieux, Paris, 27 April-2 May 1868, lot 448 — Vincent - bought in sale. Current location not traced.
(4) Titus Livius, Titi Livii Patavini latinae historiae principis Decas quarta (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1548). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). François, comte Chandon de Briailles (1892-1953); Maurice Rheims & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Bibliothèque de M. le Comte C. de X …, 1ère partie: Précieuses reliures armoriées ou ornées des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, manuscrits, Paris, 2-3 December 1954, lot 332 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 13,100). Current location not traced.
(5) Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, M. Annei Lucani De bello civili libri decem (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). The volume offered here.
(6) Titus Lucretius Carus, Lucretii Cari poetae, ac philosophi vetustiss. De rerum natura libri sex (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Giovanni Gancia, Brighton & Paris; Delbergue-Cormont & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. G. Gancia composée en partie de livres de la première bibliothèque du Cardinal Mazarin et d’ouvrages précieux, Paris, 27 April-2 May 1868, lot 460 — Lortic - bought in sale. Current location not traced.
(7) Marcus Valerius Martialis, M. Val. Martialis Epigrammaton libri XIIII (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1546). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Bibliotheca Brookeriana (to be offered in a future sale).
(8) Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus, De bello Punico libri septemdecim (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1547). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Unidentified owner, inscription “Joannis [?] Paulucci” on title — Emil Hirsch Antiquariat, Munich; their Katalog 15: Buch-Einbände. Litteratur und alte Originale (Munich [1897]), item 33 & Pl. 12 — Hector Marie Auguste de Backer (1843-1925); Fernand Lair-Dubreuil & Librairie Giraud-Badin, Bibliothèque de feu M. Hector de Backer. Deuxième partie, Paris, 28-31 March 1927, lot 2903 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 820) — Librairie Giraud-Badin, Paris; their Catalogue 11: Catalogue de livres anciens en vente au prix marqués (Paris 1929), item 1397 — Henri, comte Chandon de Briailles (1898-1937), exlibris “au C.te Chandon de Briailles” on free endpaper; François, comte Chandon de Briailles (1892-1953); Maurice Rheims & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Bibliothèque de M. le Comte C. de X… Précieuses reliures armoriées ou ornées XVIe et XVIIe siècles; Manuscrits, Paris, 2-3 December 1954, lot 306 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 32,100) — André Poursin, Paris — unidentified owner (ownership note in the volume, dated 1965: “Ensuite propriété de la famille Chandon de Briailles, ce livre a été acheté par la librairie Poursin, qui l’s vendu”) — Ader Picard Tajan, Manuscrits et livres anciens, Paris, 11 December 1981, lot 69 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 4000) — Michel Wittock (1936-2020); Christie’s, The Michel Wittock collection, Part I: Important Renaissance bookbindings, London, 7 July 2004, lot 108 — unidentified owner - bought in sale (£10,755). Current location not traced.Hobson & Culot, op. cit., no. 40.
(9) Publius Terentius Afer, Publii Terentii Afri comoediae. Multo majore quam hactenus unquam, vigilantia repurgatae (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe 1544). probably Novarini, family library (armorial supralibros). Bibliotheca Brookeriana (to be offered in a future sale).
16mo (117 x 71mm). Italic type, 29 line plus headline. collation: a–s8: 144 leaves (s8 blank). Gryphe's woodcut device on title-page, a few woodcut initials. (m3, m4 restored at lower fore-edge corners with catchwords supplied in facsimile, inscription washed from foot of title-page.)
binding: Northern Italian(?) russet goatskin (121 x 77 mm), ca. 1550, probably for a member of the Novarini family, early fanfare style, the fanfare ribbon stained a deeper red than the rest of the binding giving the appearance of an inlay, the ribbon within double gilt fillets emerging into quatrefoils at top and bottom and half-quatrefoils at sides which in turn emerge into center oval, quatrefoils contain gilt leafy branches, central oval contains arms consisting of tower on grassy field surmounted by spread eagle crowned, spine with 4 full bands, hatched in gilt, one-line title “LVCA” in top compartment, fleuron in others, edges gilt and with ropework gauffering around sides. (Extremities a little rubbed.)
provenance: probably Novarini, family library, Verona (armorial supralibros) — [Antoine-Laurent Potier?] (Catalogue de la Bibliothèque d’un amateur [Paris, n.d., after 1865], p. 60, FF 50: “Belle et ancienne reliure du temps, aux armes sur les plats: une tour surmontée d’un aigle couronné. [Cardinal Torrigiani]”) — Giovanni Gancia, Brighton & Paris (Delbergue-Cormont & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de M. G. Gancia composée en partie de livres de la première bibliothèque du Cardinal Mazarin et d’ouvrages précieux, Paris, 27 April–2 May 1868, lot 455), purchased by — Dupain (?) (FF 31) — Sotheby’s, Paris, 29 November 2007, lot 455. acquisition: Purchased at Sotheby’s through Robin Halwas.
references: FB 78188; USTC 149544; Baudrier, VIII, p.214; Gültlingen, V, p.154: 942.
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