Josephus Flavius, Della guerra giudaica tradotto..., Florence, Heirs of Filippo I Giunta, 1526, contemporary Italian brown calf for Federico II Gonzaga

Josephus Flavius. Della guerra giudaica tradotto in lingua toscana et nuouamente con diligentia stampato. Florence: Heirs of Filippo I Giunta, 6 November 1526

From the library of Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. As Baldassare Castiglione noted, at great personal expense Federico II Gonzaga had assembled a large and important library at the Montefeltro palace in Urbino. It included a selection of rare Greek, Latin, and Hebrew texts, which—like the present lot—featured ornate bindings (Il libro del cortegiano, Book I, 2).

Folio (305 x 201 mm). Roman type, 47 lines plus headline. collation: A-R⁸ S⁶ T⁴: 146 leaves. Decorated initials, engraved device on verso of T4. (A few wormholes, foxing, browning, dampstaining to lower corners.)

binding: Contemporary Italian brown calf (315 x 209 mm), for Federico II Gonzaga, covers with large rectangle composed of repeated gilt arabesque flanked by two gilt fillets and multiple blind fillets, large gilt arabesque at outer corners, at inner angles a gilt arabesque, in center of upper cover a gilt lozenge with two finials containing a castle on a hill surmounted by FIDES in gilt, and above that IOSEPHO in gilt, in center of lower cover same lozenge containing ΟλΥΜ | ΠΟΕ, traces of four pairs of fabric ties, multiple blind rules, spine with raised bands in four compartments, each with gilt rosette at intersection of saltire formed by three blind fillets, all edges gilt with three rows of dots gauffered. (Restorations at tail, slight exposure to spine bands, slight losses at head of spine.)

provenance: Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (1500-1540), supralibros, impresa of Mount Olympus with motto "Fides" on upper cover, and the same impresa with the word Olympus in Greek (ΟλΥΜΠΟΣ) on lower cover — Alfonso Vincenzo Fontanelli (1706-1777), armorial bookplate to pastedown, motto, "Sic propriis consuluit otiis" (cf. Bertarelli & Prior, Gli ex libris italiani, 1902, p. 191-2; Gelli, 3500 ex libris italiani, p. 171, fig. 288). acquisition: Purchased from Meda Riquier Rare Books Ltd., London, 2019. references: Renouard XLIX/88; Edit16 28784; USTC 836536 / 836535; Decia & Delfiol p. 131 no. 197