Alcionio, Medices legatus de exsilio, Venice, Aldus, 1522, uncut, morocco binding by Bisiaux, Renouard's copy

Alcionio, Pietro. Petri Alcyonii Medices legatus, de exsilio. (Venice: in the house of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, November 1522)

A fourth copy.

Renouard's uncut copy in a morocco binding by Bisiaux. The top edge is opened but not shaved; all deckle edges are preserved at the outer and lower edges. Renouard (p. 95 no. 6) remarked, “j’en conserve un exemplaire encore broché.”

4to (228 x 140 mm). Italic type, 36 lines plus headline, uncut. collation: a-h⁸ i⁶: 70 leaves (e7-8 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final verso. (Without blank e8, title-page slightly soiled, very small hole in final leaf.)

binding: Late eighteenth-century blue morocco gilt by Pierre Joseph Bisiaux (235 x 145 mm), flat spine gilt with Renouard's monogram at foot, gilt edges, pink watered silk endleaves.

provenance: Antoine-Augustin Renouard (1765-1853), inscription at end dated 1794, Catalogue de la bibliothèque d’un amateur avec notes bibliographiques, critiques, et littéraires (Paris 1819), IV, p.286 [sale, Evans, London, 26-30 June 1828, this copy not located in the catalogue] — George John Warren, 5th Baron Vernon (1803-1866) — Lt. Col. Sir George Lindsay Holford (1860-1926), sale, Sotheby & Co., 5-9 December 1927, lot 17 (described as the Vernon copy), £10, to Quaritch — Bernard Quaritch, catalogue 457 (1932), item 3 — Millard, 9.12.32, pencil inscription at end [presumably the bookseller Alice Millard, who supplied books for] — Estelle Doheny (1875-1958), blue morocco booklabel, sale, part IV, Christie's, New York, 17-18 October 1988, lot 1030, to Martin Breslauer. acquisition: Purchased from Martin Breslauer.