Alciati, Emblematum libri duo, Lyon, 1549, Nuremberg binding of red morocco gilt for Georg Römer

Alciati, Andrea

Clarissimi viri D. Andreae Alciati Emblematum libri duo. Lyon: Jean de Tournes & Guillaume Gazeau, 1549

A reprint of the 1547 de Tournes edition, with 198 emblems and 113 woodcuts, described as "the most skillful of the Alciati interpretations" (Mortimer, p. 19).

A beautiful contemporary binding made for the Nuremberg patrician Georg Römer, with the family arms printed and illuminated on an inserted vellum fly-leaf, as in other books from the library. The arabesque tooling and overall design of this and other volumes from the still rather mysterious Römer library owe a great deal to earlier Venetian models and have often been mistakenly localised to Venice. 

For a full description of the bindings made for Römer and a census of 24 known volumes, see Bibliotheca Brookeriana I, 11 October 2023, lot 78; that binding, on another de Tournes imprint from 1553, featured the same centrepiece, cornerpieces and leafy stamps, and also contained the painted armorial on a vellum leaf. In the census of copies given in that catalogue, this Alciati is number 1. For another Römer binding, see lot 527.

Many of Römer's books descended to the Nostitz family in their library at Schloss Lobris, but this edition of Alciati is not in the 1895 sale catalogue of the library.

12mo (120 x 72 mm). Italic type. collation: A-I8: 72 leaves. Woodcut printer's device on title-page, different device on final verso, woodcut illustrations by Bernard Salomon. (Occasional light foxing.)

binding: Contemporary Nuremberg red morocco gilt (128 x 79 mm), made for Georg Römer (possibly by Christoph Heusler), centrepiece comprised of four leafy stamps repeated in corners, double gilt fillet frames with leafy tool in inner corners, plain spine and edges, the number 55 written in ink on foredge.

provenance: Georg Römer (1505-1557), of Nuremberg, painted armorial on inserted vellum flyleaf — sale, Drouot, Paris, 21 June 1985, lot 14 — Bernard Breslauer, sold in 1986 to — Otto Schäfer (1912-2000), OS 1360, sale, Sotheby's New York, 1 November 1995, lot 5, £8,000. acquisition: Purchased in 1999 from Librairie Lardanchet, Paris. references: Adams, Rawles and Saunders F.022; Europäische Einbandkunst 47a; Green, Alciati 40; Landwehr, Romanic Emblem Books 45; USTC 124301