Castiglione, Il libro del cortegiano, Venice, Aldus, 1545, red morocco gilt with arms of Jacovacci, Colonna copy

Castiglione, Baldassarre. Il libro del cortegiano del conte Baldessar Castiglione. Nuovamente ristampato. Venice: (in the house of the sons of Aldo Manuzio), 1545

A remarkable seventeenth-century Roman binding, one of several known with the arms of Domenico Jacovacci (1604- 1661). It is possible that they were produced in the shop of one Giovanni Antonio Bordone, to whom Jacovacci made payments for unspecified “legature di libri”, the earliest dated 24 March 1640, the latest 28 July 1660.

For another similar Jacovacci binding, see Bibliotheca Brookeriana, sale, 11 October 2023, lot 11, and the accompanying census of other Jacovacci bindings.

Folio (299 x 198 mm). Roman type, 40 lines plus headline. collation: *⁴ a-o⁸ p⁶: 122 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title- page and final verso (otherwise blank). (Slight damp-staining at foot.)

binding: Later seventeenth-century Roman red morocco gilt with the arms of the Jacovacci family (296 x 206 mm), six crescents within a shield composed of small triangular tools and supported by the head and paws of a lion, with the Jacovacci crescent repeated at corners, gilt spine, gilt edges. (Small repairs to extremities, upper joint starting to split at foot.)

provenance: Domenico Jacovacci of Rome, arms on binding — Colonna family of Rome, red ink stamp of the Libraria Colonna on title-page, *2 and at end — Francis Canning (of Foxcote, Warwickshire), armorial bookplate — Philip John Canning Howard, sale, Sotheby & Co., 1-3 August 1934, lot 103, £10-10s, to Maggs. acquisition: Purchased from Librairie Lardanchet, Paris, 2016. references: UCLA 328; Edit16 10073; Renouard 131/4