Lot 75
Cicero, Marcus Tullius - Jacques Auguste de Thou
Rare Books, Maps and Manuscripts
Auction: 29 August 2012 at 12:00 BST
Description
Tusculanarum quaestionum Lib. V, ad vetustiss. exeplaria scripta, nunc summa diligentia correcti & eme[n]dati, ac commenatariis clariss. virorum Philippi Beroaldi, & Ioachimi Camerarii: deinde Erasme Roterodami, Pauli Manutii, & Petrii Victorii variis lectionibus & annotationibus illustrati. Paris: ex typographia Thomae Richardi, 1558. 4to, ff[iv], 272, [xv] [i] blank; printer's device on title page, late sixteenth century red morocco, sides with French fillet surrounding the gilt arms of Jacques Auguste de Thou and his second wife, Gasparde de la Chastre, gilt arms of the Duke of Sutherland on upper side above those of de Thou, spine with gilt compartments with the I.A.G.G. de Thou monogram between raised bands, base compartment with de Thou 'gadfly' tool, gilt-lettered direct, gilt edges, front pastedown with nineteenth century armorial bookplate and the modern bookplate of Hans Furstenburg, marginal tear on f.89 not affecting text, occasional marginal spotting and browning, final leaves lightly browned, protected in a marbled slipcase, a fine copy
Footnote
Provenance: Viscount Strathallan, Stobhall, Perthshire
Note: The second printing by Richards of Erasmus' edition of the fifth book of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, one of the most important statements of the Stoic doctrine that virtue is sufficient for happiness. De Thou married his second wife a year after the death of his first, Marie Barbançon, in 1587. The letters I.A.G. in the monogram stand for the christian names of both husband and wife, while the second G is reversed and crosses the first symmetrically to form the Greek letter theta standing for the family name de Thou.