Cicero, Marcus Tullius: De oratore.
[Venice: Vindelinus de Spira, ca. 1470]
4to. [18 26 310 4-138 146]. [110] leaves (1/1, 14/6 blank).
ISTC ic00657000; GW 6745; Goff C657; BMC V 155 (IB. 19572); Bod-inc C-229; CIBN C-440; BSB-Ink C-317.
| GIP number: | C49 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Bg.2.9 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Variant: | 1/2r, lines 1-2: “... In Libros De || Oratore ...”, not as BMC and GW “... In Libros De Ora=||tore ...” |
| Note: | Bifolium 3/1.10 misbound as the middle sheet of quire 2. |
| Note: | Printer's pin-holes visible. |
| Provenance: | Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV: Gaignat sale, 1769; lot 1470 in Guillaume de Bure, Bibliographie instructive: supplément ... ou catalogue des livres de feu M. L.J. Gaignat, 2 vols (Paris: 1769). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter at the Gaignat sale through his agent, Jean-Baptiste Dessain, for 49 livres 1 sou; see Dessain-Hunter correspondence (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 23r). University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest, 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “A.7.24”. |
| Binding: | France, 18th-century red goatskin; covers decorated with a triple gold-fillet border; gold-tooled spine; marbled endpapers; gilt-edged leaves; fleur-de-lys watermark on front flyleaf and countermark “I V” on rear flyleaf. Size: 281 x 200 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 273 x 191 mm. |
| Annotations: | Frequent marginal annotations (mainly extracting keywords) in capital letters in a humanist hand, all heavily washed out; 18th-century shelfmark(?) “b9(?)” in pencil on rear free endpaper; number “1025” in ink in an 18th-century hand on front free endpaper. |
| Decoration: | Seven-line initial “C” on 1/2r supplied in gold on a square ground of white-vine decoration defined in blue, crimson and green with white-dot embellishment; also on 1/2r is a lower border of similar decoration edged with gold and red which contains at its centre a green laurel wreath (left blank for a coat of arms); the upper and inner borders of 1/2r are composed of alternate bands of green and purple laurel leaves also with gold and red edging; six-line initial “C” on 1/4v and six-line initial “M” on 5/2r (f. 34r) supplied in gold on a blue, green and crimson square ground embellished with white-dot decoration; six-line initial “I” on 10/8r (f. 80r) supplied in gold on a rectangular blue ground with white-dot decoration. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the blank leaves 1/1 and 14/6. |
