Lot n° 69
Estimation :
1500 - 1800
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 3 250EUR
TASSE, Torquato
Gerusalemme liberata
Genova, Giuseppe Pauoni / Pavoni, 1617.
Small folio, full morocco in the style of Du Seuil, with fleurons in the corners of the central triple fillet and, in the middle of the boards, the number HD, surrounded by four claspers, ornamented edges, interior scroll. Spine with nerves decorated with motifs in small point. Gilt edges. Joints slightly cracked, some wear. [16], 255, [1], 7, [1], 36, [4] pp. Pagination error on page 43 (noted 33).
A famous and elegant edition, the second illustrated edition, of the poem in a nicely bound copy, complete with the 2 frontispieces (the one of dedication to the Duke of Savoy being in fine) and the 20 plates.
The full-page figures, interspersed in the text, were beautifully engraved by Agostino Carracci and Giacomo Franco, after drawings by Bernardo Castello. Two architectural frontispieces. One is articulated around the cartouche portrait of Tasso. The surround of the other presents an architectural decoration with, in the upper center, the portrait of the Duke of Savoy placed in a cartouche; central title flanked by columns and Tuscan crests with mottoes and compasses on the left, and with, on the right, a crossed sword and a scepter with crown; in the lower register, male and female figures in armor, representing, perhaps, Tancredi and Clorinda. The argument of each song is inserted in a woodcut cartouche.
In the mirror of the first frontispiece, a portrait of Tasso by Sadeler (1617) has been added. The center of the sheet has been incised to the size of the image, which he has glued on from the front. This modus operandi is typical of HD, a well-known but not fully identified collector. It is therefore not surprising that we find his figure on the binding.
"HD] showed his quality of amateur of illustrated volumes by a singular habit, which consists in gluing engravings to the back covers of his books with figures. "The books [of this French amateur of the end of the 17th century] are marked with the monogram HD surrounded by four closes in the center of the plates of the bindings. Jean-Marc Chatelain writes: "Very recently, it has been suggested that these initials designate Jérôme (Hierosme according to the old spelling) Duvivier, known in literary history as a correspondent and friend of La Fontaine [...] Whatever his exact identity, the small number of books known to him so far allows us to assume the existence of a cabinet of books chosen according to [well-known] criteria. On the one hand, these are aesthetic criteria, the first of which is that of illustration: HD is a collector of books with figures [...].
Ex-libris "From the Sunderland Library, Blenheim Palace, purchased, March, 1883, by Bernard Quartich, 15 Piccadilly, London."
Graesse VII, 33 - Brunet V, 666 - Jean-Marc Chatelain, La politesse des livres, https://books.openedition.org/ editionsbnf/2489?lang=en
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