Herodiani Historiarum libri VIII.

Accession number: 
PML 199253
Author: 
Herodian, author.
Published: 
Venetiis : in aedibvs Aldi, et Andreae Asvlani Soceri, mense septembri, M.D. XXIIII [1524]
Credit: 
Purchased on the T. Kimball Brooker Foundation Book Purchase Fund in honor of the Morgan's Centennial.
Description: 
[1], 97, [1] leaves ; 17 cm (8°)
Notes: 

Translated from the Greek by Angelo Poliziano.
The Latin volume of the first Aldine edition of Herodian's Roman History which was issued in 1524 in two parts, Greek and Latin, with distinct signatures and pagination and individual title-pages and addresses to the reader by Andrea Asulani. The text was available in either a bilingual edition comprising both parts, or separately in either Greek or Latin editions. This is the Latin text only, supplemented by the leaf containing Asulani's prefatory letter to the Greek text.
Imprint from colophon.
Includes title page, 97 numbered leaves (i.e. 194 pages), and final leaf with printer's device on verso.
Signatures: 1⁸ (+π2) 2-11⁸ 12¹⁰.
Woodcut Aldine device on 12 10v, numerous 3- and 6-line initial spaces with guide-letters. Illuminated and decorated in Paris for Jean Grolier: printer's devices illuminated in gold with red penwork decoration, guide-letters supplied in liquid gold, most with further red penwork.

Binding: 
Parisian olive morocco (173 x 115 mm) by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier, ca. 1545, gold-tooled, covers paneled with border and frame of double gilt fillets, single gilt fillet rounding arc in corners, central undulating lozenge-cartouche composed of single gilt fillet, long leafy tool and bud and leaf tool, title gilt-lettered within the upper cartouche, Grolier's personal motto (Portio mea Domine sit in terra viventium) within the lower, at foot of upper cover between the two pairs of fillets IO. GROLIERII ET AMICORVM, spine simply gilt ruled in eight compartments with five full and two half bands, vellum endleaves, additional contemporary flyleaves at front and back, gilt edges. (Head and foot of spine restored, some other minor and exceptionally fine restoration, one rear flyleaf detached.) Half brown morocco folding-case gilt, velvet-lined.
Variant Title: 

Historiarum libri VIII

Provenance: 
Jean Grolier de Servières, vicomte d'Aguisy (1489?-1565), supralibros, his name and motto on covers; [anonymous sale, Paris, May 1901?, as per Austin]; evidently purchased by J. Pearson & Co., Very choice books including an extremely important series of historical bindings (London, [1902?]), p. 56, item 91 (450 guineas; "Grolier's copy, having the initial letters and the Aldine anchor illuminated in gold ... It sold in Paris, May 1901, for 8,800 francs"); Junius Spencer Morgan (1867-1932); Sigurd Wandel (1875-1947) and Gudrun Wandel (1882-1976), joint ex libris; Skandinavisk Antiquariat, Auktionskatalog over Prof. Sigurd Wandel's Samling, Copenhagen, 6 February 1923, lot 1497 and p. 117 (illustration); L'Art Ancien, Bulletin X: Fine Italian Books, 15th and 16th Century (Lugano, 1924), item 2940 and Pl. I (frontispiece) CHF 9000 Jacques Rosenthal, Munich; sold to Ernst Kyriss (1881-1974); Karl & Faber, Auktion 18, Munich, 16-17 January 1940, lot 474, evidently consigned by Kyriss; purchased by Antiquariat W. Henrich, Frankfurt am Main; Willy Dreyfus (1885-1977); Sotheby's London, 14 March 1967, lot 108 (attributing the binding to Claude de Picques); purchased by Georges Heilbrun, Paris (£1900); Pierre Schiller; Ader Picard Tajan & Claude Guérin, Paris, 11 December 1981, lot 27; purchased by unidentified owner (FF135,000); Michel Wittock (1936-2020); Christie's Paris, Collection Michel Wittock. Troisième partie, 7 October 2005, lot 24 (€66,000). acquisition: Purchased at the Wittock sale via Robin Halwas; T. Kimball Brooker (b. 1939), his sale: Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library. The Aldine Collection D-M, Sotheby's, New York, 18 October 2024, lot 765.
Classification: 
Department: