Caesar, Commentarii, Venice, Aldus, 1519, contemporary panel-stamped Flemish calf

Caesar, Gaius Julius. Hoc volumine continentur haec. Commentariorum de bello Gallico libri VIII. De bello civili Pompeiano libri IIII. De bello Alexandrino liber I. Venice: heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, January 1519

Second Aldine edition.

8vo (162 x 98 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: A-B⁸ a-z⁸ aa-oo⁸: 312 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title- page, on verso of kk8 and final verso, 5 full-page woodcut illustrations; double-page woodcut maps of Gaul and Iberia.

binding: Flemish panel-stamped binding, ca. 1530, full brown calf (170 x 110 mm), covers paneled in blind, framing elaborate motif of acorns, leafy vines, with pinecone in each corner, and winged dragons flanking central panel, spine with raised bands in four compartments, early paper label to second with manuscript title, holes from two sets of ties, edges gilt and gauffered to a rope and star pattern, vellum pastedowns from a thirteenth-century (Parisian?) glossed Gospel of Luke (part of Luke 24:48-53). (Extremities rubbed with loss to spine, upper joint cracked, first spine compartment loose.)

provenance: Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1655-1716, signature to lower pastedown, and according to his catalogue (National Library of Scotland, Saltoun Papers, MS 17863), "sent with Cuningame [sic] to England", i.e. from the Netherlands, where Alexander Cunningham sourced books for Fletcher) — John T.T. Fletcher (1903-1995, sale, Replica Shoes & Co., London, 21-23 November 1966, lot 281). acquisition: Purchased from Lawrence Feinberg, Brooklyn, 1977. references: UCLA 185; Cataldi Palau 51; Edit16 8155; Renouard 88/11