[Bible] Psalterium, Venice, Aldus, [not after 1498], contemporary Roman medallion binding

[Bible] Psalterium graecum. Ψαλτηριον [edited by Justinus Decadyus]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, [not after 1 October 1498]

Third edition of the Psalter in Greek, preceded by the Greek-Latin edition printed by Bonus Accursius, Milan, 1481 (Goff P- 1035), and a 1486 Venice edition in an unusual Greek font signed by Alexander of Candia, the only edition bearing his name. The prefatory letter by the editor, Justinus Decadyus of Corfu, is addressed to readers in Hellas. The edition is listed in Aldo’s broadside advertisement of Greek books for sale, 1 October 1498, priced at 4 marcelli.

On page ι1r, the first line omits text, presumably because the compositor misread a mark in his exemplar. As in other copies, the lacuna is partially supplied in manuscript in the upper margin (see also following lot), which it has been suggested is in the hand of Aldus himself.

This binding is decorated by a plaquette of Diana, facing left, with an elaborate coiffure and diadem. The model exists in several versions, dated ca. 1460-1480 (Jeremy Warren, A Catalogue of the Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: Medieval and Renaissance sculpture, Volume 3: Plaquettes (Oxford 2014), pp.909-910 nos. 368-370). Anthony Hobson documented its use in four binding centers: Venice, Florence, Milan, and Rome, ca. 1480-1525. This binding is not included in Hobson’s 1989 census or Supplements (1994, 2000).

Super-Chancery 4to (215 x 153 mm). Greek type, 20 lines. collation: α- ^{8 6}; κ-ν ο-υ⁸: 150 leaves. Printed in red and black throughout, woodcut initials and borders including a depiction of David charming the wild creatures with his harp (α3 and κ1 with full borders). A large copy, with deckle on lower edge of some leaves.

binding: Roman plaquette binding (210 x 155 mm), ca. 1510-1520, brown goatskin over pasteboards, traces of gilding on some tooling, with impressed plaquette of Diana, a diadem in her hair; stubs of 4 pairs of red silk ties, spine with three double bands, compartments crosshatched in blind, edges gilt and gauffered, watermark of a short-legged dog in a circle on front (lifted) pastedown [Briquet 3646, dated to Rome, 1515]; in a cloth box. See Anthony Hobson, Humanists and Bookbinders (Cambridge, 1989), census of plaquette bindings no. 3 (Diana), p. 216; this binding not cited by him. (Covers and spine worn with loss of some leather.)

provenance: Obscured institutional inscription on title-page (from a convent or congregation). acquisition: Purchased from Bernard Quaritch, London, 2011. references: UCLA 29; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 29; BMC V 563 (IA.24458); Goff P-1033; GW M36248; ISTC ip01033000; Renouard 260/8; Sander 5944; Geri della Rocca de Candal, "Lost in transition: a significant correction in Aldus Manutius's Psalterion (1496/98)", The Library, 7th series, 23 (2022), 155-179, appendix, copy no.117