ALUNNO Francesco del Bailo dit. Le osservationi di M. France - Lot 2

ALUNNO Francesco del Bailo dit. Le osservationi di M. Francesco Alunno da Ferrara sopra il Petrarca. Venice, (Comin da Trino di Monferrato for) Pauolo Gherardo, 1550; in-8 ruled of [8] ff. including the woodcut title, 527 ff, [3] ff, contemporary binding in brown calf, gilt and cold-stamped fillets on the boards, arms in the centre, spine with gilt fillets, gilt edges, black morocco spine-case. Second edition, improved and enlarged with the glossary of Petrarch's words. Woodcut frontispiece including a portrait of the author, calligrapher and lexicographer who died in 1556. BINDING WITH THE ARMS OF SIR WILLIAM PICKERING (1516-1575), a great lover of books, British ambassador to the French court during the reign of Henry II. During his stay which lasted nearly three years (1550-1552), he bought French books and had them bound in France. French books and had them bound in Paris. He must have been a high-level Italianist, for twenty-five of his thirty-seven known works were like this one printed in Venice. Cf. I. G. Philip, "Sir William Pickering and his books" in The Book Collector, Autumn 1956, who counted 37 volumes of this provenance. Pickering liked well-bound books. This one must have fulfilled his wishes. The binding has been skillfully repaired. The edges seem to have been re-gilded.