Castiglione, Il libro del cortegiano, Venice, Aldus, 1541, Venetian red morocco gilt by the Cicero Binder

Castiglione, Baldassarre. Il libro del cortegiano del conte Baldesar Castiglione, nuovamente stampato, et con somma diligenza revisto. (Venice: in the house of the sons of Aldo Manuzio), 1541

The Cicero Binder is named for the high number of Cicero volumes he bound for Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. Hobson, in Renaissance Book Collecting, appendix 7, lists numerous bindings by him, including many for Cardinal Perrenot de Granvelle.

8vo (151 x 100 mm). Italic text, 30 lines plus headline. collation: A-Z⁸ AA-BB⁸: 200 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title- page and final verso.

binding: Contemporary Venetian red morocco gilt (162 x 109mm), by the Cicero Binder, covers with a gilt fillet frame with small acorn tools, central cartouche formed from leafy tools within a shaped gilt fillet frame, inner corners with leafy stamp, lettered CORTEGIANO in center of upper cover, blind-tooling in spine compartments, edges gilt and gauffered to a knotwork design, stubs from two pairs of ties. (Small repairs to ends of spine and joints.)

provenance: Christopher Tower of Weald Hall (1775-1867, armorial bookplate) — Sir Robert Leighton (1884-1959), sale, Sotheby & Co., 17-18 October 1960, lot 731, £40, purchased by — Sir Peter Henry Berry Otway Smithers (1913-2006), sale, Sotheby & Co., 5-6 February 1973, lot 175, £130, to Quaritch. acquisition: Purchased from Sotheby's sale via Bernard Quaritch. references: UCLA 299; Cataldi Palau 123; Edit16 10070; Renouard 121/1; A. Hobson, Renaissance book collecting (1999), Appendix 7: The Cicero Binder, no.56