Justin Martyr | [Works in Greek], Paris, Robert Estienne, 1551, contemporary calf gilt

Justin Martyr

[Works in Greek] Ζηνα και Σερηνο. Λογος παραινετικος προς Ελληνας... Paris: Robert Estienne, 1551

folio (335 x 220mm.), woodcut initials and headpieces, contemporary (French?) calf gilt, central arabesque gilt stamp and leafy arabesque border, gauffered edges, lower margin of title-page replaced, binding somewhat rubbed, joints cracked, hinges repaired

EDITIO PRINCEPS of the works of Justin Martyr, the second-century Christian apologist.

For another identical binding, see lot 68, an Estienne Geneva imprint but with early Nuremberg provenance. 

LITERATURE

Mortimer, Harvard French 335; Schreiber, Estienne 107; USTC 150985

PROVENANCE

William Horatio Crawford, of Lakelands (Co. Cork), bookplate (not found in his Sotheby's sale catalogue of 1891); George Dunn, of Woolley Hall, booklabel and pencil note in his hand ("Binding. G.D. Dec. 1898"), sale, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 2 February 1914, lot 1290 ("old French calf"); Loverdos Collection, gilt bookplate and library stamp to rear free-endpaper