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an old book with gold trimming and a red coveran old book with a picture of a woman holding a babyan old book with writing on it sitting on top of a tablean old book with a picture of a woman holding a baby
ALDE

44 - PLATINA (Bartolomeo Sacchi, known as).
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Estimate €2,000 - €3,000
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Description
PLATINA (Bartolomeo Sacchi, known as). On the Lives and Deeds of All the Supreme Roman Pontiffs, from Christ to Sixtus IV. With an appendix on all the other pontiffs, up to Paul III, the Supreme Pontiff. Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1543. In-4, red morocco, double border of simple gilt lines and quadruple blind-stamped lines, Aldine fleurons at the corners and in the centres, a broad gilt frieze with spandrels at the corners, a large central cartouche outlined in fillets containing, within a circular medallion, the title ‘plat. d’. l’. vite di pon. ’ on the front cover and an empty coat of arms flanked by the initials ‘A/A’ on the back cover, decorated spine, gilt and chiselled edges (contemporary Venetian binding). First Italian edition of the important *Vie des pontifes romains* (Lives of the Roman Pontiffs), composed in Latin by the humanist Bartolomeo Sacchi (1421–1481), known as Il Platina or Platine in French due to his place of birth, Piadena in Lombardy. The work was elegantly printed in italics on the presses of Michele Tramezzino (1526–1579?). The beautiful engraved mark featuring the Sibyl, belonging to this Roman printer based in Venice, adorns the title page and the penultimate leaf. The publisher dedicated the work to Pietro III Lando, Archbishop of Crete. Superb Venetian morocco binding, attributable to the workshop of the ‘Fugger Binder’, also known as the ‘Venetian Apple Binder’. Active in Venice from the mid-1530s, this workshop worked for some of the greatest bibliophiles of the time, such as Cardinal de Granvelle, Johann Jacob Fugger and Diego Hurtado da Mendoza. This binding features the characteristic fruit-shaped metal stamp (Venetian Apple) that gives the workshop its name in Mirjam Foot’s classification, whereas Ilse Schunke had previously named it the ‘Fugger-Meister’ on the basis of a series of Greek manuscripts held in Munich, whose bindings had been commissioned from this workshop by Johann Jacob Fugger. The empty shield on the second cover is also found on Johann Jacob Fugger’s *Dion Cassius* from the Wittock collection, as well as on a copy of Castiglione’s *Il Cortegiano* from the Henry Davis bequest (Foot, III, no. 295). Hobson suggests that the initials A. A. flanking the shield—which appear on several bindings from the same workshop (Robin Halwas cites eleven)—are those of Arnoldus Arlenius (Arnout van Eyndhouts), born in Aarle or 's-Hertogenbosch, who had been employed in Venice since 1542 as librarian to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador and a great bibliophile. This binding likely comes from the same workshop as the inscribed copy of this same edition that was in the T. Kimball Brooker collection (2025, VIII, no. 245), although the catalogue states: ‘The binding is in the style of the Fugger binder, but the workshop is unknown’. The spine decoration, originally composed of cold-stamped metal tools, was enhanced with gilded metal tools and a title label in the 18th century. The endpapers were replaced with marbled paper at the same time. Handwritten bookplate on a white endpaper: [...] Audiberti. Caps and corners skilfully restored; worm-eaten at the corner of the first three leaves. USTC 807522 – CNCE 35117 – M. M. Foot, The Henry Davis Gift, I, no. 24 and III, nos. 293–298 – De Marinis, II, no. 2442, pl. CCCCVI – I. Schunke, ‘Venezianische Renaissance Einbände’, Studi di bibliografia..., 1964, IV, pp. 123–200 – A. Hobson and P. Culot, *Italian and French 16th-Century Bookbindings*, *Bibl. Wittockiana, 1991, no. 11 – A. Hobson, Renaissance Book Collecting, Appendix 8, no. 90 – R. Halwas, ‘Venetian bindings for an owner with initials A.A.’ (online).
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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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