Huttich, Imperatorum et Caesarum vitae, Strassburg, 1534, contemporary Italian brown morocco gilt

Huttich, Johann. Imperatorum et Caesarum Vitae, cum Imaginibus ad vivam effigiem expressis. Libellus auctus cum elencho et Iconiis Consulum ab Authore. (Strassburg: Wolfgang Köpfel), 1534

Huttich's work on the portraits of the Roman emperors from Caesar to Charles V was originally published in 1525, and his supplementary list of consuls with their portraits is included here for the first time. This is the first numismatic work in which the line of Roman emperors was continued to the present day with Charles V. Many images were adapted from Fulvio's Illustrium imagines of 1517 (see lot 527).

Similar binding designs were used by Bolognese binders in the 1520s as well as the Mendoza Binder in Venice in the 1530s, and indeed some Roman binders. The watermark in the rear endleaves, an anchor in a circle surmounted by a six-pointed star, is too generic without its countermark to help with localising the binding.

This text was owned by Philip II, among others; see Bibliotheca Brookeriana I, 11 October 2023, lot 51, for his copy in a contemporary Salamanca binding.

2 parts, 4to (190 x 132 mm). Italic type, 27 lines plus headline. collation: Aa–Bb⁴ A–X⁴ Y⁶; aa–dd⁴: 114 leaves. Title within four-piece woodcut border, 268 white-on-black medallion portraits of emperors (some with blank centres), most enclosed within ornamental border-pieces, a second four-piece woodcut border on L2; section-title on aa1 within historiated woodcut frame (with figures from the Trojan War, previously used in the Homer printed by Köpfel in 1525), text within vertical woodcut borders, 84 woodcut medallions, woodcut printer's device on final verso of each part. (Lower corner lightly dampstained throughout.)

binding: Contemporary Italian brown morocco gilt (198 x 140 mm), centrepiece composed of four quarter-circle stamps surrounded by a ring of small fleurons, the same stamp and fleurons used in the corners, frame of gilt and blind fillets with semicircular gilt stamp in centre of each side, spine in compartments with blind ruling, edges gilt and gauffered to a knotwork design, stubs from four pairs of ties. (Binding slightly rubbed, spine creased and repaired at ends, corners bumped, a few small wormholes in boards with a few small areas of loss to covers, lacking front flyleaf.)

acquisition: Purchased in 2000 from Sokol Books, London. references: Dekesel H40 & H41; Fairfax Murray, German 219; VD16 H 6474 & H 6469