Cicero, Marcus Tullius [pseudo-]:  Rhetorica ad C. Herennium.

[Venice?:  Printer of Datus, Elegantiolae (H 5969*), ca. 1475]
Fol.   a-f⁸ g⁶.   [54] leaves.
ISTC ic00677000;  GW 6717;  Goff C677;  BMC V 583 (IB. 25091);  CIBN C-467;  BSB-Ink A-819.

The signatures are stamped in, or occasionally added in manuscript.

GIP number:	C61
Shelf-mark:	Sp Coll Hunterian Be.3.29 (see main library entry for this item)
Bound with:	The second of two incunabula bound together.  Bound (as in many other copies) with:  Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De inventione, sive Rhetorica vetus.  [Venice:  Filippo di Pietro], 1475 (C41).
Provenance:	Petrus Desentianus(?) (16th-century):  partially erased inscription on a1r of first item in volume “Iste Liber est mei petri desent[...]”. Joannes de Peregrinis (16th/17th century):  inscription on a1r of first item in volume “Joa: de Peregrinis”. Venice, Capuchins:  inscription on g6v “Loci Venetiarum Capuccinorum”;  the same inscription (partially erased) appears on a2r of the first item in volume. Robert Hoblyn, (1710-1756), politician:  Bibliotheca Hoblyniana (Londini: J. Murray, 1769), p. 213;  Hoblyn sale, 2 March 1778 onwards;  lot 3411 in Bibliotheca Hoblyniana ... (London: Baker & Leigh, 1778). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist:  purchased by Hunter at the Hoblyn sale for £1.7.0 according to the annotated British Library copy of the Hoblyn sale catalogue - shelfmark S.C.S. 11 (4).
Binding:	Italy, 16th-century blind-tooled, brown goatskin over bevelled wooden boards.  Covers decorated with fillets to form three frames and a centre panel;  the latter has a reticulated design formed from an interlaced tool and is further decorated with a small annulus-shaped tool used singly or in groups of seven;  the inner frame is decorated with a chain-like pattern formed by an interlaced dotted tool (cf. Weale, Bookbindings, fig. 13 (lower right), p. xviii);  the middle frame is decorated with a small annulus-shaped tool used singly;  the outer frame is decorated with a rope-like pattern formed by a dotted s-shaped tool, a six-petalled flower stamp and a lattice stamp.  Rebacked in 19th/20th century and new flyleaves added at front and rear;  original spine covering not preserved;  no evidence of pastedowns.  Remains of two clasps, with brass catch plates on rear board - and in a corresponding position on the front board are brass rivets decorated with a star-shaped design.  Manuscript title on fore-edge ‘Retorica Tulii’ running from head to tail.   Size:  297 x 205 mm.
Leaf size:	290 x 203 mm.
Annotations:	Occasional marginal annotations in humanist hands, mainly extracting keywords;  brief questions (“Omnes questiones”) on the Rhetorica written in a 16th-century hand on a early flyleaf inserted after g6.
Decoration:	Five-line initial “E” on a1r supplied in gold and embellished with white-vine decoration defined in blue, purple and green with a pattern of white dots, which extends into the inner and upper margins (two initials in the first item in the volume are by the same illuminator);  other initials supplied throughout in red or blue, with evidence of guide-letters in brown ink.
Imperfections:	None.