Recent acquisition: Historia Naturale. by Gaius Plinius Secundus (Latin translation by Cristoforo Landino, c. 1476)

 

Translated from Latin into Italian by Cristoforo Landino. [413] leaves, lacking the first & last blanks. 50 lines, spaces for initials with guide letters. Handsome Roman & Greek types. Illuminated by a contemporary Italian artist (see below). Two vols. Large folio (415 x 275 mm.), 19th-century French dark blue straight-grained morocco, gold-tooled to a sober neo-classical design, sides panelled with triple gold fillets enclosing diaper and palmette rolls in blind, an inner panel of a single gold fillet framing gilt cornerpiece tools in gold and a different blind palmette roll, spines divided into six blind- & gold-tooled compartments, the second and sixth compartments lettered in gold, board edges gilt, turn-ins decorated with blind roll & gilt fillets, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, paper outer flyleaves, vellum inner flyleaves, by René Simier, with his gilt stamp "Simier R[elieur]. du Roi" in lower compartment of spine of Vol. I (a few nicks and scratches to covers, trifling wear at corners and extremities of spines).