Ange. Areti. super Institu.: Opus preclarum...sup[er] q[ua]ttuor libris Institutionu[m]; cu[m] casibus longis egregii viri d[omi]ni Franciscis de Aretio...positis quidem in margine ut facile discerni a studiosis possit quid cuiq[ue] professori attribui conveniat; cui nuper superaddit[us] est index alphabeticus materiarum singularium per numerum designativus cum novis additionib[us] in glo. positis noviter impressis; addita sunt novo cetu summaria super quolibet paragrapho cum quibusdam additionibus

by Angelo Gambiglioni (Angelus Aretinus) | with additions by Franciscus Accoltus (Francesco Griffolini)

Lyon: Antoine du Ry for Jacques Giunta, 8 April 1523

[42], dcxxvi leaves | 4to | aaa-ddd^8 eee^10 a-m^8 n^10 aa-pp^8 qq^12 A-L^8 M^10 AA-VV^8 Aa-Pp^8 Qq^10 | 209 x 147 mm

The first Giunta edition of the Italian jurist's popular commentary on Justinian's Institutes, first published in 1473. More than two dozen editions had appeared by the time ours went to press. The additions by Accoltus, one of the age's great legal luminaries, were first published in 1492 or 1493, and he may outshine the headlining role of Gambiglioni. "Few authors were as famous in the fifteenth century as Franciscus Accolti (1418-1486), known as Aretinus as he came from Arezzo: erudite not only in juridical but also in literary matters (he was also a student of the great humanist Franciscus Filelfo), he taught in Bologna, Florence, Siena and Pisa; he was also tied to Lorenzo de Medici. He distinguished himself particularly for his capacity to elaborate subtle and exhaustive analysis of the Justinian Compilation texts—he could dedicate an entire year to examining a single title of the Digest" (Padoa-Schioppa). Perhaps that explains how tremendously thick this book is. ¶ The text upon which Gambiglioni and Accoltus commented, Justinian's Institutes, is one of four texts that comprise the full Corpus iuris civilis, a massive compilation and codification project undertaken at Emperor Justinian's behest in the sixth century. This particular component "is a brief textbook intended for students beginning their legal studies; in short, an introduction to law" (Wauters). Justinian's team essentially repackaged earlier Roman law drawn from a variety of sources, reorganizing disparate selections under new headings. In this respect, the Institutes stands out as "the only work from the classical stage that has come down to us almost fully intact and free of any manipulation by the Justinian compilers" (Wauters). ¶ There are plenty of Justinian editions out there, so we're really here for the tacketed binding, a very fine example of a classic medieval stationery structure used on a printed book. "Tacketed bindings occupy a somewhat indeterminate place in the canon of bookbindings," Nicholas Pickwoad begins. "They are seldom aesthetically pleasing (and apparently never decorated) and they survive in relatively small numbers." The name comes from the readily visible tackets on the spine, which here secure the parchment cover to the sewn text block (in the sense of Pickwoad's secondary tackets). Our tackets are perhaps made of alum-tawed skin, tightly twisted as usual. Peeking down the openings of the hollow spine, one can just see the tackets making contact with the sewing supports. They wrap around these supports and are then secured inside the text block between gatherings. For example, see them deep in the margin between gatherings eee and a at front, and between Kk and Ll near the end. ¶ The tacketed binding was a favorite structure for medieval stationers, dating at least to the 12th century, and possibly as early as the 4th century. They are common in many of Europe's old archives, Italy especially, and so are found rather more frequently on manuscripts of an archival nature rather than printed books. "It was used to make or reinforce strong volumes which would withstand the sort of regular handling experienced by archival records, open well, and allow relatively easy access for writing. It was these qualities, in addition to their cheapness, which made tacketed bindings attractive to the printed-book trade in the last quarter of the fifteenth century." Our binding is very likely contemporary with its imprint, not least because it coincides with the height of the structure's popularity on printed books—at least according to Pickwoad's research sample—namely the late 1520s and early 1530s. "These bindings have survived in relatively limited numbers, a testament both to their uncertain status at the time of binding and also to their entire lack of the sort of aesthetic qualities which would have encouraged antiquarian collectors of the eighteenth and later centuries to preserve them undisturbed." ¶ Our example actually does possess a modest degree of decoration: a piece of blind-tooled leather adhered to the parchment spine covering. It's not unusual for small pieces of leather, or even wood, to be used as additional tacket support—saltire tackets on dark tacket blocks is a rather iconic look—but a full-size support like this appears far less ordinary. It's seldom easy to determine whether a tacketed binding might have been intended as a temporary or permanent binding. But decorated like this, it's hard to believe it wasn't meant as a relatively permanent solution. It's an unlikely binding, combining the efficiency of the tacketed structure with the finish of a decoratively tooled spine.

PROVENANCE: Initialed inscription on front fly-leaf dated 1559. Ownership inscription on the main title and first divisional title of a Bibliotheca Ellingana, probably in Ellingen, Germany. Old 19th-century ink stamp on title of the Württembergische Landesbibliothek. Old ownership inscription on front fly-leaf of Johann Jacob Zech; we find at least two men by that name in Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries. With early marginalia on fols. 32v-39r and 116r, brief scattered annotations on 157v-167r, and a brief annotation on 201r. Motto written on the front cover within three concentric crescents (Noli expectare).

CONDITION: In a tacketed parchment binding as described above, the outer spine lined with a full-length piece of blind-tooled leather; old ties largely intact, and an abbreviated title ink on the top edge. In four parts, each with a separate title page matching the main title, featuring a large decorative border and master-and-student woodcut, each woodcut with a small hole allowing the teacher to be identified with movable type (in this case, Angelus or its abbreviation). With an additional accipies woodcut repeated on fols. 2, 108, 240 (i.e. 238), and 338. ¶ Edges of text block a bit dusty, and just a little dampstaining in some upper margins; some extremely discreet worming at the inner margin. Parchment soiled and spine ends a bit worn, but really quite nice, inside and out. Altogether a well preserved example of a fundamental workaday binding style.

REFERENCES: USTC 155588 ¶ On the content: Antonio Padoa-Schioppa (Caterina Fitzgerald, tr.), A History of Law in Europe (2018), p. 165-166 (cited above); Bart Wauters and Marco de Benito, The History of Law in Europe (2017), p. 6 (cited above), 26 (cited above) ¶ On the binding: Nicholas Pickwoad, "Tacketed Bindings: A Hundred Years of European Bookbinding," For the Love of the Binding (2000), p. 119 (cited above; "The name as applied to book structures goes back to the Middle Ages, and describes a length of material, usually of skin in the form of tanned leather, alum-tawed skin, or parchment, but also of thread or cord, which is used to secure and hold together two or more components of a larger structure"), 121 (cited above), 122 ("it is clear that, from at least the fifteenth century onwards, a proportion of printed books were sold through the book trade as sewn text-blocks without any form of cover, and it would have been an expedient response on the part of a retail bookseller—or an impecunious customer—to have a tacketed wrapper added to such a text-block to protect the major investment made in buying the printed sheets"), 135 (on tacket blocks: "Thick leather or parchment are the most common, but thick hide wrapped in thin white parchment, tanned calf and goatskin and calf vellum are also found, the intention in all cases being to prevent the tacketing material from tearing the cover. They are a common feature of tacketed stationery bindings, as well as long-stitch bindings, and are found on tacketed bindings on printed books through to at least the 1560s."), 140 ("Their manufacture is largely restricted to Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy, but it may be expected that examples from other countries such as England and Spain will be found"), 141 ("They used throughout the last quarter of the fifteenth century, but, unless low survival rates have seriously affected the picture, it would appear that they arrived at the height of their popularity in the decade around 1530, after which their use slowly declined until 1580"); Mirjam M. Foot, Bookbinders at Work: Their Roles and Methods (2006), p. 12 ("The habit—particularly strong in Germany, the Low Countries and Italy between c. 1515 and c. 1560—borrowed from the stationery trade, of attaching a sewn textblock with tackets (loops) to its—often parchment—cover, could serve both as an interim expedient, or as a cheap retail binding"); Etherington and Roberts, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, "tacketing" (dating the structure to the 12th century); Ligatus: Language of Bindings, "secondary tackets"; Jane Greenfield, ABC of Bookbinding (1998), p. 69 (dating tackets "as early as the 4th century") ¶ On the provenance: Bibliotheksstempel: Bestizvermerke von Bibliotheken in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1998), p. 191 (reproducing our ink stamp in the bottom row)

Item #802