Binding.- Navagero (Andrea) Orationes duae, Carmina que Nonnulla, first edition, collation: [*]² a-b⁴ c² d-f⁴ g² h-k⁴ l⁶ (lacking final blank),woodcut title-vignette, good margins, slight worming to lower margin throughout, occasional soiling, endpapers with anchor watermark, in a Venetian binding by the Mendoza binder (Andrea di Lorenzo) of contemporary olive morocco over pasteboard, gilt and blind fillet borders, undulating panel on sides with central roundel containing flaming urn tool, author's name lettered in upper border and owner's name in lower on both covers, 3 double and 4 single raised bands to spine, compartments tooled in blind, edges gilt and gauffered, missing 4 pairs of silk ties alternating black and yellow, covers slightly stained and scuffed, head and tail of spine worn with loss, modern fleece-lined green cloth drop-back box, small folio (283 x 196mm.), Venice, Giovanni Tacuino, 1530.

⁂ Navagero was librarian of the Marciana, official historian of the Venetian Republic, and close associate and editor for the Aldine Press, who was serving as Venetian ambassador to France when he died, aged 45. His friends published this work as a memorial to him and a Paris edition was published the following year. Among the original owners of this semi-private publication were other Renaissance illuminati such as Grolier and Grimaldi.

Only recently has the identity of the principal binder for Hurtado de Mendoza and others been posited as Andrea di Lorenzo, bookbinder of the parish of San Fantin at Venice (Hobson, Renaissance, p.119). Considered 'the finest and most inventive Venetian binder of the mid-sixteenth century, a craftsman of great prestige whose ornaments and designs were imitated in France and Germany' (Hobson/Culot, p.15), Lorenzo bound not only for Mendoza, but also for J.J. Fugger, Granvelle, et al. The contemporary owner of the present volume was Benedetto Curtio, ambassador to Venice of Francesco II Sforza, Duke of Milan, to whom a 1544 edition of Terence's Comedies in Italian was dedicated.

Provenance: Benedetto Curtio, of Pavia, ambassador of Francesco II Sforza to Venice (binding); Alessandro Monti (ink inscription on title, partly washed); Marchese Giorgio Porro Carcani (gift inscription on front flyleaf to); Conte Giovanbattista Giovio (sale Christie's Rome, 17 February 1977, lot 120); Michel Wittock (bookplate).

Literature: Adams N94; EDIT 16 CNCE 34919.