Alcionio, Medices legatus de exsilio, Venice, Aldus, 1522, calf gilt by Étienne Roffet for François I, Wodhull copy

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

A fifth copy.

François I's copy, bound for him by Étienne Roffet in about 1537-1540, as one of a group of books in portable format forming his "Italian Library." A very similar binding can be found on another 1522 imprint from Venice, a copy of Seneca printed by Andrea Torresano, and still in Fontainebleau (illustrated in Marie-Pierre Laffitte and Fabienne Le Bars, Reliures royales de la Renaissance: La Librairie de Fontainebleau 1544-1570 (1999), item 4b, p.44).

François was fluent in Italian, and his Italian library was composed predominantly of recent Venetian imprints, the majority in Italian with just a few in Latin or Greek, of which around a hundred still survive. The books were bought in Italy but bound in Paris, and this is considered to be the first collection to which the owner's arms were systematically added to the covers. For another binding from this specific collection, see lot 415.

4to (204 x 132 mm). Italic type, 36 lines plus headline. collation: a-h⁸ i⁶: 70 leaves (e7-8 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final verso.

binding: Contemporary calf gilt by Étienne Roffet for François I (210 x 135 mm), border of blind (or oxidized silver) and gilt fillets with gilt fleur-de-lys and leafy decoration, central arms of François I with his salamander device below, and letter F stamped above and below, spine with small flower stamped alternately in gilt and blind (or silver?) and with the letter F stamped at ends of spine, gilt edges, stubs from four pairs of ties, in modern drop-backed folding box. (Corners and joints repaired, binding slightly rubbed, lower joint starting to crack.)

provenance: François I, King of France (died 1547), arms on binding, and seventeenth-century shelfmarks from the royal library at head of title-page (crossed through) — Dr Henry Pemberton (1694-1772), sale, Baker and Leigh, 24 May 1772, lot 1238, 13 shillings, to — Michael Wodhull (1740-1816), his notes on flyleaf: "from Dr Pemberton & Dr Wilson’s Libraries, at Baker's auction, 13s, new back and Lr'd, 1s 9d, [total] 14s-9d" dated 29 February 1772; at end Wodhull’s date of finishing the text, January 23rd 1801, his sale, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 11-21 January 1886, lot 75 ("very fine copy, from the library of Francis I... beautifully rebacked") — François Gustave Adolphe Guyot de Villeneuve, sale, Paris, 26 March 1900, lot 190. acquisition: Purchased from Librairie Paul Jammes, Paris, 2003. references: UCLA 215; Cataldi Palau 83; Edit16 859; Renouard 95/6. For the binding, see T. Kimball Brooker, "Bindings commissioned for Francis I's 'Italian Library' with horizontal spines titles dating from the late 1530 to 1540. A Supplement" in Comites latentes per gli 80 anni di Francesco Malaguzzi (Vercelli 2010), p.37.