[Historiae Romanae decades].

Download image: 
Accession number: 
PML 278-79
Author: 
Livy.
Published: 
[Venice] : Vindelinus de Spira, 1470.
Description: 
[421] leaves ; 41.5 x 28.5 cm (fol.)
Credit Line: 
Purchased with the Toovey collection, 1899.
Notes: 

Title from ISTC.
Colophon (leaf [42]/12v): .M.CCCC.LXX. Proderat haud multum Livi abs te scripta fuisse / Maxima si romȩ facta pari eloquio: / Q[ue] seu desidiis: alio seu crimine quovis: / Sive & temporibus cuncta fere occiderant: Queq[ue] superfuerant opera: hec tam rara videri: / Ut pene ipsorum copia nulla for[et]: / Et Vindelino debebis tu qoqu[ue]: formis / Egregie impressit has modo qui decadas: Atq[ue] ipsas iisdem scevis velut hostibus acri / Bellow oppugnatas fortiter eripuit. ...
Printed in type 1:110R.
Collation: [Dec. I: 1-2¹²; 3-11¹⁰ 12¹⁰(1+1 bella opti[m]e) 13-15¹⁰ 16-17⁸; Dec. II: 18-24¹⁰; Dec. III: 25-31¹⁰; Dec. IV: 32-34¹⁰ 35-36⁸ 37-41¹⁰ 42¹⁴]: 421 leaves, leaves [1]/1, [17]/8, and [42]/14 blank.
Paper format: Royal folio
Edited by Johannes Andreas, bishop of Aleria.
The outer sheet of quire [c] was reprinted to include a portion of text omitted from the original printing (BMC).
A copy is known (formerly in the collection of W.H. Crawford, sold at Sotheby's 12 March 1891, lot 1905, again 30 Nov. 1995, lot 280) with a colophon date 1469, which is an eighteenth-century forgery: see M. Castellana in Bulletin du bibliophile et du bibliothécaire 1891, confirmed by more recent observation.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 40 x 26.8 cm.
PML copy bound in two volumes (I: quires [1-17], II: quires [18-42])--each volume has different decoration and annotations.
PML copy missing 2 leaves: [1]/1 and [17]/8 (blanks) and with a blank leaf (probably [42]/14) bound before quire [32] in vol. II.

Binding: 
Both volumes: 18th/19th-century English red, straight-grained morocco over paper boards (41.5 x 28.5 cm), sewn on 5 supports. Marbled paper pastedowns and fly leaves with plain paper fly leaves; decorative endbands; gilt and gauffered edges (vol. II only).
Inscriptions/Markings: 

Vol. I (PML 278). Hand decoration: Illuminated white vine initial; rubricated, alternating red and blue lombards. Annotations: Contemporary marginal notations (in quires [1]-[7]) and alpha-numeric manuscript quire signatures.
Vol. II (PML 279). Hand decoration: Pen and wash historiated initials on blue ground, bas-de-page borders in the style of Girolamo da Cremona; rubrics added in red and blue before each Decade, in red before each book. Annotations: No marginal notations in text.

Provenance: 
Vol. I (PML 278). Maffeo Pinelli (1736-1785), both volumes together at latest by Pinelli; Pinelli sale, 2 March 1789, no. 7724, sold for £54.12.0; Thomas Knight, purchased at Pinelli sale (according to Acheson); Richard Heber (1773-1833), Bibliotheca Heberiana stamp (vol. I, second fly leaf recto); Bibliotheca Heberiana sale, Part I, Sotheby's, 10 April 1834, lot 4378; Archibald Acheson, Earl of Gosford (1806-1864), armorial booklabel and provenance note (vol. I, front pastedown), purchased at Payne & Foss, 1837; James Toovey (1814-1893), Burnham Abbey booklabel (vol. I, front pastedown); Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased with the Toovey collection, 1899.
Classification: 
Department: