[BINDING -- FUGGER BINDER]. DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321). Comedia...con la Dotta & Leggiadra Spositione di Christophoro Landino. Venice: Bernardino Stagnino, 1536.

4to (210 x 154 mm). Woodcut illustrations (one full-page). (Lacking first quire comprising 12 leaves, some staining and worming).

IN A CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN BINDING of brown goatskin tooled in gilt and blind by the "FUGGER BINDER" (or "Venetian Apple Binder"); strapwork border with floral tools, foliate cornerpieces and floral and vine tools surrounding central motto within central ovate: "Ch'inte sta iltor mi morte et darmi vita," edges gauffered and gilt (upper hinge broken, spine partially perished, worn).

A reprint of the 1512 Stagnino edition using the same woodblocks, which were based on the 1491 Venetian edition of Benalius and Capcasa. Adams D93; USTC 808785.

The "Fugger Binder," so-called for the many commissions he completed for Johann Jacob Fugger of the Augsburg family of bankers, was active in Venice between 1540 and 1560. The British Library holds a copy of Appian's Delle guerre civili de Romani [and] Histoira delle guerre esterne de Romani, published Florence 1526/1531 in a Fugger Binder binding decorated to a similar style with the same central motto (see The British Library Database of Bookbindings, shelfmark Davis751). The British Library mentions an "identical binding [which] is kept in the Royal Library, Copenhagen" citing: T. de Marinis, La legatura artistica, II, n. 2161 bis, p.117, plate C 44.

This lot is located in Chicago.

[BINDING -- FUGGER BINDER]. DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321). Comedia...con la Dotta & Leggiadra Spositione di Christophoro Landino. Venice: Bernardino Stagnino, 1536.