Copy number: S-341(1)

The faulty leaves b7-8 are present in this copy.

Binding: Contemporary Venetian (c.1480-90) brown goatskin over wooden boards bevelled inwards. Four clasps, secured by three star nails (forming a triangle) - three lacking - four hinged on the upper cover. Trefoil-shaped catches with pointed tops, zigzag engraving round the edges, secured by three nails. Five frames of a thick line between two thin ones, corners mitred. Border between the second and third of linked double circles enclosing rosettes, and between the fourth and fifth of arabesque ornament in relief. Lozenge-shaped tool with concave sides massed in the central compartment. Light brown edges. Diagonal headbands of pink and blue silk. Sewn on three wide split thongs. Bands divided by a thick line between two thin ones. Saltire of similar thick and thin lines inside a similar frame in each compartment. Pastedowns at each end. Free endleaf (no watermark) at end wrapped round the last gathering. The gold stamp of the Bodleian Library on both covers. The linked double circle tool is similar to, though not identical with, one used in Padua (cf. Auct. Q sup. 1.27, C‑121). The relief border tool appears to be identical with one used on Venice, Museo Correr, III. 996, Commissione of Vittore Michaeli as Captain of Galleys, 1489 (De Marinis, Legatura, II, no. 1619, pl. 273). Other relief border tools of the same type probably all Venetian, with the possible exception of no. 5:
1(a). Library of Congress, H 10534: Franciscus de Mayronis, Super primo Sententiarum. Treviso, 1476;
(b). BL, IB. 21254A (De Marinis-Fürstenberg, 118): Thomas Aquinas, Super primo libro Sententiarum, Venice 1486; Super secundo Sententiarum, Bologna 1494;
(c). Library of Congress, H. 1480: Thomas Aquinas, Super tertio libro Sententiarum, Venice, 1490;
2(a). Venice. Bibl. Marciana, gr. IV, 1. Plato, Opera, MS, s.xii;
(b). Cambridge UL, Inc. 2.B. 3. 7 Α(b): Junianus Maius, De priscorum proprietate verborum, Venice, 1485;
3. Rome, Accademia dei Lincei, 50.F.8: Asconius Pedianus, Commentarii in orationes Ciceronis], Venice [after 2 June 1477]; Anthony Hobson, Humanists and Bookbinders: The Origins and Diffusion of the Humanistic Bookbinding 1459-1559, 216 no. 3a;
4. Harvard UL, Typ. 5280: Statuta Venetorum, Venice 1492. This in turn has a palmette border in common with San Marino, California, HEHL 87532: Galen, Therapeutica, [Venice: Z. Kallierges for] N. Blastos, 1500. The latter has other borders in common with Venice, Bibl. Marciana, lat. III, 5: Epistola Samuelis, s.xv, with the arms of Zabarela of Padua, and lat. VIII, 40, De machinis, a collection of drawings of instruments presented by Paulus Sintinus to Bartolomeo Colleoni;
5. Philadelphia, Penn. College of Physicians, Zy. 9a, Aristotle, Physica, with the commentary of Averroes, Venice: Bernardinus Stagninus de Tridino, 1489, from the Badia, Florence, and with ‘Florentine' shell clasps.

Size: 302 × 202 × 33 mm.

Size of leaf: 292 × 198 mm.

Some early annotations in a round Italian hand, extracting key words and personal names, and providing running headings (in red ink), pointing hands, underlining, and corrections to the text. A few notes in a sixteenth-century cursive Italian hand. Some page numbers supplied in a fifteenth/sixteenth-century hand. On the front pastedown and a1r drawings of a chalice and the host, notes and scribbles in an untidy upright humanist hand, including ‘Omnia vincit hamor et nos cedamus hamori'. On a1v on a scroll: ‘amado qua[n]to mio mayor frad[e]llo char[issim]o' in a Spanish-Italian patois.

Some initials are supplied in brown or red ink; some capitals coloured in red.

Provenance: Purchased for £0. 9. 0; see Books Purchased (1816), 7.

SHELFMARK: Auct. N 4.22.

Copy number: S-341(2)

Wanting the blank leaf a1.

The faulty leaves b7-8 are present in this copy.

Binding: Eighteenth-century half calf over marbled paper boards. The spine gold-tooled, with the author's name on a red leather label. Sprinkled red-edged leaves.

Size: 292 × 200 × 27 mm.

Size of leaf: 285 × 188 mm.

A few marginal notes in red ink in a contemporary cursive Italian hand, extracting key words and supplying brackets. Copious notes in Italian in a seventeenth-century Italian hand, supplying folio numbers in arabic figures, chapter numbers (arabic or roman) within each vita, and corrections to and comments on the text. The number ‘3' in the upper left-hand corner of a2r.

On a2r a seven-line initial ‘I' is supplied in blue with contrasting red pen-work and flourished extensions. Similar initials are supplied in red or blue ink at the beginning of the other vitae. Elsewhere initials and paragraph marks are supplied in red or blue ink.

Provenance: Richard Heber (1773-1833); on the recto of the front endleaf Heber's note: ‘Sale by Sotheby July 1817'. J. T. Hand (fl. 1835-1837); signature on the endleaf dated 1836(?); sale (1837), lot 256; paper label at the tail of spine. Purchased for £1. 5. 0: see Books Purchased (1837), 36.

SHELFMARK: Auct. O inf. 2.21.