Nov 11, 2008 - Sale 2162

Sale 2162 - Lot 25

Price Realized: $ 6,960
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
(BIBLE IN ITALIAN.) La Bibia. Woodcut text illustrations. [6], 465 [i. e., 467], [3], 100 leaves, including blank 3&6. 4to, contemporary Geneva(?) binding of elaborately gilt-tooled and painted brown calf with silk ties, large panel on covers containing azured arabesque center- and cornerpieces with remaining blank area and center oval filled in with semé of small fleurs-de-lys, the whole within border formed by azured strapwork roll, the latter also applied horizontally across flat spine between compartments of parallel or diagonally intersecting fillets, the strapwork accentuated in silver and black overall, rebacked retaining original backstrip, joints partly cracked; occasional minor browning, soiling, and spotting; gilt edges; late 19th-/early 20th-century morocco pull-off case. Signature of Giovanni Antonio De Pellizzari dated 1745 on title. [Geneva]: Francesco Durone, 1562
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Additional Details

first complete protestant bible in italian, in a lavish contemporary binding. A revision of the 1530-32 Italian version by Antonio Brucioli, this edition was printed for the use of Protestant refugees in Geneva. The binding decoration is characteristic of Lyon, "although Lyonese craftsmen worked in this style . . . possibly in Geneva" (Hobson). Darlow & Moule 5593 (variant B, with no sidenotes in the New Testament and no index); cf. Hobson, French and Italian Collectors 23, and Martin Breslauer, Catalogue 106, item 64.
From the library of Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904), shown in the landmark 1903 exhibition of his collection of bookbinding literature at Columbia University Library, and sold as lot 105 in his sale at Anderson Galleries, 10 November 1919. According to both the exhibition and sale catalogues, the Bible is "said to have belonged to Renée de France," Duchess of Ferrara (1510-74), the daughter of Louis XII of France and a controversial supporter of the Protestant cause, but there is nothing in the volume other than the fleurs-de-lys on the binding to support this.