Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library. The Aldine Collection D-M
Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library. The Aldine Collection D-M
Auction Closed
October 18, 08:42 PM GMT
Estimate
125,000 - 150,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Dante Alighieri. Le terze rime di Dante. [Lyon: Baldazare de Gabiano and/or/for Barthélemy Trot?, 1502-1503?]
A second copy, printed on vellum, of the Gabiano-Trot forgery, the first edition of Dante to be printed outside Italy.
Lyon counterfeits on vellum are exceptionally rare: William Kemp estimates that among all the many Aldine forgery editions produced in Lyon from about 1503 to about 1508, no more than twenty total copies printed on vellum have survived: "This is by far the most productive period of the Lyonese Aldine imprints. It must be remarked here that vellum copies of any publication were not common in Lyons during these years, and vellum copies of octavos even less so. In the case of the second edition of Juvenal/Persius (ca. I503), the first of Cicero's Opera (ca. I506) and of Philostratus (ca. 1504), three vellum copies are known. Two such copies are known of the earliest edition of Dante (ca. I503; no copy of the supposed second edition has yet been identified), of Cicero's Epistolae familiares (ca. 1506), and of the second Petrarch (ca. I508, but perhaps earlier). Single vellum copies are known or have been cited for the first Valerius Maximus (ca. 1503), the second Juvenal/Persius (ca. 1504), the second Virgil (ca. 1504), and a Horae (ca. 1505)" ("Counterfeit Aldines and Italic-Letter Editions Printed in Lyons 1502-1510: Early Diffusion in Italy and France," in Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada, Vol. 35, No. 1 (1997): 92–93). Kemp identifies the two vellum copies of the Lyon Dante as "Harvard and perhaps another elsewhere"—evidently the present copy. Van Praet II: 173 cites two copies: "Bibliotheque du Roy d'Angleterre" and "Museum Britannicum."
Aldo tried to protect his typographic and editorial innovations through privileges and bulls granted by the Venetian Senate and the Pope in 1501-1502, but the printers of the contrefactions were undeterred. “Exasperated by the ineffectiveness of the legal instruments of protection, on 16 March 1503 Aldus issued a single sheet entitled Monitum in Lugdunenses typographos, in which he warned his readers about the forgeries and provided them (and the forgers!) with a list of the typographical mistakes that distinguished each of the fake edition from his own” ("Aldus Manutius: A humanist printer for humanist readers," Cambridge University Library online exhibition; https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/manutius/).
As recorded in two inscriptions at the end of the text, this copy was expurgated in accordance with the Index librorum prohibitorum issued in 1612 by the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, by Fr. Michael Guevara, of the Hieronymite Order, 1613, and Fr. Bernardus Cortes, 1709. The three cancelled passages are Pope Anastasius's denial of the divine birth of Christ (Inferno XI, 7–9; c8v), Dante's criticism of the Donation of Constantine and its consequences (Inferno XIX, 106-117; f4v), and Folco da Marsigli's denunciation of the corruption of the Church and his prophecy that the Papacy would return from Avignon in 1305 (Paradiso IX, 136-142; A1v).
8vo (161 x 90 mm), printed on vellum. Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a-z8 A-F8 G12: 244 leaves (l2 blank). Three-line initial spaces with guide letters at the beginning of each cantica. An expurgated copy, with some passages crossed through by censors (see above).
binding: Green crushed morocco (167 x 101 mm) by Emilio Brugalla, signed and dated 1947 on lower front turn-in, covers gilt-tooled to a sixteenth-century design with interlaced borders and small arabesque stamps, spine gilt in six compartments, red moiré silk linings, vellum flyleaves, gilt edges. (Slightest rubbing to extremities.)
provenance: Expurgated according to the Spanish Index of Prohibited Books of 1612 by Fr. Michael Guevara, of the Hieronymite Order, 1613, and Fr. Bernardus Cortes, 1709, inscriptions at end of text) — Andrés Roure Gili (1911-1996), Barcelona, green morocco booklabel — Livio Ambrogio — Philobiblon, The Dante Collection (dantecollection.com). acquisition: Purchased from PrPh Books, New York, 2017. references: UCLA 1107; Adams D84; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 134.7; Baudrier, VII, 11-12; Edit16 1145; Gültlingen, I, p. 64:13; Renouard 307/9; Shaw 5; USTC 808778/130004