[BINDING] M. Tullii Ciceronis Familiarum Epistolarum Libri XVI.

Cum Hubertini Crescentinatis, Martini Philetici, Iod. Badii Ascensii, Ioan. Baptistae Egnatii, & Pauli Manutii ab ipso proxime recognitis, emendatis, atq; auctis comentariis, & aliorum doctissimorum virorum, quorum nomina subscripsimus, annotationibus sparsim appositis, quibus difficillima quaeque Ciceronis loca explicantur, & mendosa corriguntur … Adiectis praeterea argumentis, & lemmatibus Giberti Longolii … … Venetiis : apud Johannem Mariam Bonellum, 1567. Folio (315 x 228 mm), early binding of marbled paper over semi-limp boards (some surface loss along the hinges and extremities), spine hand-lettered in red and black, top- and bottom-edges hand-lettered in black; [4], 257 leaves; title with woodcut printer’s device and early ownership signature; rear endpaper watermarked with a cardinal’s hat under trefoil; front endpaper removed, scattered spotting, marginal staining to the last few leaves, else internally clean and sound.

An attractive sixteenth-century Venetian edition of Cicero’s Letters to Friends, in a beautiful 17th- or 18th-century marbled paper binding with a French curl (or snail) pattern.

‘Although Wolfe suggests that this pattern’s creation dates back to at least as early as 1630, Muira traces its beginnings to a later decade, 1660 in France.’ (University of Washington Libraries)

Note on Letters to Friends:

In the fourteenth century, copies of over 800 of Cicero’s letters were rediscovered by Petrarch and other humanists. As a corpus of texts that provides a myriad insights and a phenomenal amount of detail about the private and public life of a particular period, this correspondence is unparalleled in the classical world.