Curtius Rufus, Venice, Aldus, 1520, later calf with panels from a François I binding

Curtius, Rufus Quintus. Quintus Curtius. Venice: heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, July 1520

With panels bearing the arms of François I, King of France, from his Italian library; for another binding from this particular collection, see lot 111.

8vo (162 x 98 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: *⁸ a-x⁸ y⁴ (*2 unsigned l): 180 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final verso. (t4 with closed marginal tear repaired, worming to inner margin of final gatherings, a few spots.)

binding: Dark brown calf tooled in gilt and blind (168 x 118 mm), covers with earlier panels bearing the arms of François I within rectangle formed by multiple gilt rules, and gilt fleurs-de-lys, spine with raised bands in six compartments, later paper label to first, others with fleurs-de-lys device tooled in blind, edges gilt. (Extremities a trifle rubbed.)

provenance: François I, King of France — Charles Joseph Barthélemy Giraud (1902-1881), sale, Paris, 26 March 1855, lot 2565 — Mikhail Aleksandrovich Golitsyn (1804-1860, stamp to title; Charles Gunzbourg, Catalogue des livres de labibliothèque du prince Michel Galitzin (Moscow 1866), no. 1266) — Jean Fürstenberg (1890-1982). acquisition: Purchased from Martin Breslauer, Inc., New York, 1982. references: UCLA 186.5; Edit16 13880; Renouard 88/1