Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part V

Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part V

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1040. Boethius, Della consolatione de la filosofia tradotto da Cosimo Bartoli, Florence, 1551, contemporary brown morocco gilt.

Boethius, Della consolatione de la filosofia tradotto da Cosimo Bartoli, Florence, 1551, contemporary brown morocco gilt

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December 10, 04:10 PM GMT

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1,200 - 1,500 GBP

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Lot Details

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BOETHIUS, ANICIUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS SEVERINUS. Manlio Severino Boetio senatore et gia console romano Della consolatione de la filosofia tradotto da Cosimo Bartoli gentil’huomo fiorentino. Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino, (February) 1551


Charles V made a request to Cosimo de’ Medici, duke of Florence, to commission translations of Boethius into Italian; this is one of three translations published within three years (1550-1552), by Lodovico Domenichi, Benedetto Varchi, and Cosimo Bartoli, more or less to Cosimo’s specifications, whereby passages in verse should retain their metre. All were printed by the ducal printer, Lorenzo Torrentino.


The armorial stamps on the binding have not been traced; another binding with these stamps was in the Landau and Broxbourne collections, on a Venetian imprint also from 1551 (now Bodleian Library, Broxb. 23.23). An earlier Townshend, Sir Roger (grandfather of Charles, 3rd Viscount Townshend), owned a substantial library, inherited for the most part from his grandfather Sir Nathaniel Bacon, including numerous Italian works from this time, though a copy of Boethius in Italian does not feature in the listing of his library made in 1625 (PLRE 3).

8vo (161 x 99 mm). Italic and roman type, 25 lines plus headline. collation: A-P8: 120 leaves. Woodcut Medici arms on title-page, woodcut initials. (Title-page slightly soiled, occasional light foxing or staining.)


binding: Contemporary brown morocco gilt (170 x 110 mm), probably French, outer frame of gilt and blind fillets, in centre a double gilt circle infilled with a small outline leaf stamp, with a small gilt armorial on upper cover with motto “Sic itur ad astra”, and a gilt combination lock stamped on lower cover with motto “Non alius” and “liberta”, spine with small fleuron gilt in compartments, gilt edges. (Binding slightly rubbed, joints and ends of spine repaired, spine creased, lacking front flyleaf.)


provenance: Claude Burdeau (?) and Nicolas Daulphin, names written backwards on final verso, and note along fore-edge "In perpetuam amicitiae symbolam [—] Delphinus (i.e. Daulphin) — [-] de Chandon (?)", early inscription at foot of title-page — the Honourable Charles Townshend, armorial bookplate dated 1734 (probably 3rd Viscount Townshend, 1700-1764, of Raynham Hall, Norfolk) — Bonhams, sale, London, 24-25 June 2003, lot 275. acquisition: Purchased in 2003 from Maggs Bros, London. references: Edit16 6563

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