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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 1484…
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Estimate €5,000 - €6,000
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Description
BOCCACCIO. Decameron. Venice, Baptista de Tortis, 8 May 1484. Folio, 137 ff. (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, without place or date, was printed around 1470, probably in Naples. A sumptuous two-column print in round type, 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 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 is indeed present in our copy, but its third and final leaf (A3) is missing. 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. A handwritten ex-libris in Italian appears beneath the register (f. 137v°). The coat of arms adorning the incipit is that of Bernardo Bembo (1433–1519), an illustrious Venetian humanist and diplomat, and a collector of art, books and ancient coins, of whom Hans Memling painted a portrait (now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp) whilst he was Venetian ambassador to the court of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, between 1471 and 1474. The first blank leaf (recorded in the register as ‘prima alba’) is missing and has been replaced by a handwritten title page at the time of binding. Earlier restorations in the margins and on the endpapers of most quires (affecting a few letters on ff. 46–47 and 107); a stain on ff. 69–70, discolouration and very slight tears on f. 137 caused by a handwritten inscription on the reverse. 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.
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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
Lot description modified on 10/01/2026 at 2:11 PM
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ALDE
See original version (French)
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