Pontano, Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1513, Roman red goatskin, ca. 1535

Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano. Pontani Opera. Vrania, siue de stellis libri quinque. Meteororum liber unus. De hortis Hesperidum libri duo. Lepidina siue postorales [!] pompae septem. Item Meliseus Maeon Acon Hendecasyllaborum libri duo. Tumulorum liber unus. Neniae duodecim. Epigrammata duodecim. Quae uero in toto opere habeantur in indice, qui in calce est, licet uidere. Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1513

[Bound with:] Giovanni Gioviano Pontano. Ioannis Iouiani Pontani Amorum libri II. De amore coniugali libri III. Tumulorum II, qui in superiore aliorum poematon editione desyderabantur. Lyrici I. Eridanorum II. Eclogae duae Coryle, et quinquennius superioribus quatuor additae. Calpurnij Siculi Eclogae VII. Aurelij Nemesiani Eclogae IIII. Explicatio locorum omnium abstrusorum Pontani authore Petro Summontio uiro doctissimo. Index rerum, quae in his Pontani lusibus contineantur. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, February 1518

Second and sole Aldine edition, respectively, of two collections of verse by Pontano (1426–1503), a leading figure at the humanist Accademia Pontaniana, Naples. 

The Roman binding, commissioned by Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, dates from the first generation of bindings to have authors and titles lettered on the spines. Anthony Hobson believed Salviati and other Roman book buyers patronized "a shop whose specialty was the import of Venetian editions of vernacular works. There are three grounds for this attribution … most persuasively, the custom of tooling the author's name on the spine at this period is characteristically Roman. There are several examples among the Salviati books in the Vatican Library.

"The late Graham Pollard drew attention to these Roman bindings as the earliest to have the titles tooled in gilt on the spine. This does not of course mean that they were intended to be shelved upright in the modern manner. The author's name is lettered sometimes up and sometimes down the spine [as here]. One would have expected consistency if the books had been intended to stand upright side by side. No doubt they would have lain horizontally resting on either the upper or the lower cover with the spines outwards" ("Some Sixteenth-Century Buyers of Books in Rome and Elsewhere," p. 69).

2 works in one volume, 8vo (161 x 95 mm). Opera: Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a–z⁸ aa–ii⁸: 256 foliated leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and ii8v, two-, three-, and six-line initial spaces with guide letters. Amorum: Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a–x⁸ y⁴: 172 foliated leaves (s8, x5 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and y4v, two- to seven-line initial spaces with guide letters. (Some mostly marginal foxing to first third of first work, Aldine device on ii8v lightly inked and printed.)

binding: Roman red goatskin (168 x 111 mm), ca. 1535, gold tooled, covers panelled with gilt and blind fillets, gilt fleur-de-lis at outer corners, gilt knotwork tools at inner corners, central armorial supralibros of Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, a diamond ring and feather emblem of Medici (and Salviati through marriage) within three interlaced squares, making a 24-sided figure, a star in each angle, spine in four compartments with three full and four half bands, author's name lettered down central two compartments, traces of two pairs of ties, edges gilt and elaborately gauffered. (Rebacked, preserving much of original spine, spine and corners otherwise extensively restored.)

provenance: "A.38," Roman bookseller's mark (?) under title-page Aldine device in both books — Cardinal Giovanni Salviati (1490–1553), armorial supralibros — Salviati family library (Rome), inkstamp "Ex lib. Bibl. Dom. Salviatae" on title-page — Major Bryan Palmes (1851–1932; later Lieutenant Colonel and resident of Villa Mezzomonte, Capri, Italy), armorial bookplate; his sale, Sotheby's London, 25–26 July 1923, lot 105; purchased by — David Alexander Robert Lindsay, 28^th Earl of Crawford, 11^th Earl of Balcarres (1900–1975) (£6) — Tammaro De Marinis (1878–1969), letter of presentation by Lord Crawford to Tammaro De Marinis "un petit cadeau d'amité, en souvenir de votre première visite a Balcarres" loosely inserted — Martin Breslauer Inc., New York, but not traced in Breslauer catalogues. acquisition: Purchased from Martin Breslauer Inc., New York, 1978. references: Opera: UCLA 109; Adams P1858; Aldo Manuzio Tipografo 119; Edit16 37456; Renouard 63/7; USTC 850318. Amorum: UCLA 165; Adams P1864; Cataldi Palau 35; Edit16 37595; Renouard 85/10; USTC 850310. For the binding: De Marinis, La Legatura artistica in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI (Florence, 1960), no. 2966 and Pl. G2; A. Hobson, "Some Sixteenth-Century Buyers of Books in Rome and Elsewhere," in Humanistica Lovaniensia 34A (1985): 65– 75 (referencing the Brooker Pontanus on p. 69, including the Brooker Pontanus in a list of ten bindings from Cardinal Salviati’s library having spine tooling)