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an old book sitting on top of a table next to a white backgroundan old book with a black and white title on itan old book with a picture of a man holding a sword
ALDE

9 - BOCCACCIO. *Decameron*. Venice, Baptista de Tortis, 8 May 14…
See original version (French)

Estimate €5,000 - €6,000
Sale commission
Description
BOCCACCIO. *Decameron*. Venice, Baptista de Tortis, 8 May 1484. Folio, 137 leaves (out of 138), signed a–q8 r10 (excluding the table of contents); marbled sheepskin, decorated spine, red edges (18th-century Italian binding). Tenth edition of Boccaccio’s Decameron. The first edition, undated and without a place of publication, was printed around 1470, probably in Naples. A sumptuous print in round type, in two columns, produced by the Venetian press of Baptista de Tortis, who published over 180 incunabula from 1481 onwards and continued his work into the early 16th century. This Venetian edition is extremely rare. The ISTC lists only five copies worldwide, held in the libraries of Florence, Milan, the Bodmer Foundation in Geneva, and the universities of Yale and Harvard. Only the copies in the Trivulziana in Milan and the Beinecke Library at Yale include the extremely rare table of contents for the ten days, which is missing from almost all known copies (3 ff. sign. A3 [± A4 bl.]). This table of contents is indeed present in our copy, but is missing its third and final folio (A3). The colophon is in its first state, with the incorrect date: M.iiii.lxxxiiii (corrected in the Florence copy to M.cccc.lxxxiiii). The incipit is adorned with a large two-tone leaf-shaped initial drawn in pen and a hand-drawn coat of arms at the foot of the page, partially damaged by the bookbinder’s knife. The rest of the volume has not been rubricated. Handwritten ex-libris in Italian beneath the register (f. 137v°). The first blank leaf (listed in the register as ‘prima alba’) is missing; it was replaced by a handwritten title page at the time of binding. Previous repairs in the margins and on the backs of most quires (affecting a few letters on ff. 46–47 and 107); a stain on ff. 69–70, discolouration and minute tears on f. 137 caused by a handwritten inscription on the verso. ISTC ib00727000 – Hain 3276 bis – Reichling 1145 – Goff B727 – GW 4448 – Brunet, I, 997 – L. C. Witten, ‘Boccaccio in Beinecke’, Yale U. L. Gazette, 60/3–4, 1986, pp. 105–110.
See original version (French)
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About the sale Fine antique books – A library in the Languedoc
Auction location
Auction time 10/20/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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