Cicero, Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium libri IV, Venice, Paolo Manuzio, 1569, Italian plaquette binding

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium libri IV incerto auctore. Ciceronis de inventione libri II. Topica ad Trebatium, partitiones oratoriae. Cum correctionibus Paullii Manutii. Venice: Paolo Manuzio, 1569

[Bound with:] De oratore libri III. De optimo genere oratorum. De claris oratoribus. Scholia Pauli Manuti. Venice: Paolo Manuzio, 1569

A very early Milanese plaquette binding, very likely one of the earliest executed. Hobson contended that "all Italian sixteenth-century gilt plaques of Renaissance ornament are rare," and found no other example of this plaque (Hobson/Culot, p.55). He located four different plaques of this type, locating three to Rome, and the last possibly to Venice.

The inscription could be by Pellegrino Pellegrini (alias Pellegrino Tibaldi, 1527-96), an artist and architect of renown whose prominent commissions across Italy and Spain are exemplars of the mannerist style. In 1586 Tibaldi went to Spain, following and replacing Federico Zuccari as court painter. He painted the lower cloisters of El Escorial at the request of King Philip II; the frescoes in the library are considered his greatest work. After nine years he returned to Italy and was appointed the architect of the Duomo in Milan until his death in 1592. His library presumably remained at Milan, where this Cicero was inscribed by a later Pellegrino in 1641, though it is not listed in Tibaldi's inventory of his library.

2 works in one volume, 8vo (150 x 101 mm). Italic type, 29 lines plus headline. collation: (1) A-Z⁸ AA-BB⁸: 200 leaves. (A few quires browned.) (2) A-Z⁸ Aa-Oo⁸: 296 leaves.

binding: Italian plaque binding (157 x 111 mm), probably Milanese, ca. 1569, gold-tooled red-brown morocco over pasteboard, arabesque azured plaque, blind and gilt fillet frames, border of repeated small leaf tool, 4 double spine bands with diagonal lines, gilt compartments, edges gilt and gauffered with knotwork decoration within frames of dotted lines and s-tools, pastedown and two flyleaves at each end, watermark of initials not quite visible. (Light wear at upper joint.). In a modern folding green cloth case.

provenance: Pellegrino Pellegrini, alias Pellegrino Tibaldi (title inscription; see above) — Girolamo Pellegrino, student of rhetoric at Milan (inscriptions dated 1641) — Paul Fontainas (sale, Brussels, 31 March 1973, lot 47) — Michel Wittock (bookplate, sale Christie’s London, Part I: Important Renaissance Bookbindings, 7 July 2004, lot 41). acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale via Robin Halwas. references: UCLA 806, 807; Edit16 12413, 12407; Renouard 206/5-6; Hobson & Culot, Italian and French sixteenth-century bookbindings, no. 20