Bernard Quaritch and Dante
A CELEBRATION OF DANTE
PART II
The great international antiquarian book trade has played an essential role in the knowledge and transmission of the Italian cultural tradition. In this regard, a remarkable contribution was made by Bernard Quaritch (1819-1899), who, throughout his career, was able to offer collectors and institutional libraries an unrivalled series of ‘monuments’ of Italian book production: codices produced in medieval scriptoria, illuminated humanist manuscripts, the elegant editions printed by Aldus Manutius, and first editions of the ‘classics’ of Italian literature, beginning of course with Dante and his Commedia.
Born in the small town of Worbis, Germany, Quaritch moved to London in 1842 and – after working for bookseller and publisher Henry John Bohn (1796-1884) – issued his first and still ‘modest’ catalogue in October 1847: Quaritch’s Cheap Book Circular. This three-column, single-leaf catalogue contained 400 titles. It also already featured a small section devoted to ‘Italian Classics’ – early glimmers of the impressive selection of Italian books the London bookseller would present to his clientele in the following years – with nineteenth-century editions of works by Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and Manzoni.
Gradually, his catalogues became richer and more ambitious, as Quaritch came to assume a leading role in the great international antiquarian book trade. The difference is particularly evident in his General Catalogue of Books of 1868, twenty years after the appearance of Quaritch’s Cheap Book Circular.
Three pages are now entirely devoted to works by Dante (nos. 4043-4071). The titles listed mainly feature eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editions, apart from a few of the earliest volumes, including two copies of the first appearance in print of the Convivio, published in Florence in 1490 (nos. 4069-4070); the edition of the Commedia printed by Manutius which appeared in 1502 under the title of Terze rime, offered by Quaritch in the issue containing the first appearance of the Aldine device (no. 4046); the Venetian Commedia printed by Bernardino Stagnino in 1512 (no. 4043) and presented by Quaritch in the copy once owned by the renowned scholar and Dante translator William Roscoe (1753-1831), whose library, which contained “a number of fine Italian books and manuscripts” (S. de Ricci, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts, Cambridge 1930, p. 94), had been sold in Liverpool in 1816.
At the end of this General Catalogue, Quaritch published a lengthy list of Desiderata, or Books wanted to purchase:
Perusing these Desiderata is extremely interesting. The impressive list offers a precious survey of the most sought-after books, including typographical masterpieces of all times and in all languages, and containing – in the section devoted to the Bibles Quaritch wanted to purchase – such a ‘minor wish’ as the “Latin, edition prima, called the ‘Mazarine Bible’, 2 vols. Fol. Printed between 1450 and ’60, by Guttenberg”…
The Desiderata section also includes three editions of Dante’s Commedia, evidently those considered by the bookseller to be the most desirable: the first edition printed in Foligno in 1472 (“Dante, ed. pr. Foligno, 1472”); the Vindeliniana of 1477, i.e., the first edition to be supplemented with a commentary (“Dante Allighieri, Comedia, Venetis, Vindelin de Spira, 1477”); and the Florentine Commedia of 1481, the first illustrated edition, containing engravings after Sandro Botticelli’s drawings, of which Quaritch expresses a desire to purchase “a copy with all the plates”, and not – as in almost all recorded copies – only the first two engravings, printed at the beginning of the first two cantos.
Over the years, Quaritch would indeed come to deal in many of the editions listed in his Desiderata, as his seventeen General Catalogues published between 1887 and 1898 strikingly attest. This was a result of his “increasing domination of the sale-rooms” (S. de Ricci, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts, p. 159): among others, it is enough to mention here three legendary sales that took place in the rooms of Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge in the 1880s and 1890s in which Quaritch participated as a fearless bidder, “paying the highest prices for the finest books and gathering into his stores practically everything that was worth having in those gigantic libraries” (ibid.): the book collection owned by the politician and great art patron William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844; see The Hamilton Palace Libraries. Catalogue of The First Portion of the Beckford Library, removed from Hamilton Palace,1882-1883), the Syston Park Library, assembled first by Sir John Thorold (1734-1815) and more significantly by his son John Hayford (1775-1831; see Catalogue of an Important Portion of the Extensive & Valuable Library of the Late Sir John Hayford Thorold, Bart. Removed from Syston Park, Lincolnshire, 1884), and finally the library amassed by Earl Bertram Ashburnham (1797-1878; see The Ashburnham library. Catalogue of the Magnificent Collection of Printed Books, the Property of the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Ashburnham, 1897-1898).
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of William Beckford, 1782. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Quaritch’s then-unrivalled stock is presented in catalogue no. 175 of November 1897, titled Monuments of Printing Comprising Books Produced by the Earliest Press in Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, and England from 1455 and 1500, which also included – as stated in the title-page – “a few remarkable examples of a somewhat later date.” The catalogue comprises 643 entries, mostly related to editions that appeared in the fifteenth century, and offers a survey of early printing, while simultaneously representing a veritable monument to Quaritch’s career as an antiquarian bookseller. It was a catalogue “the like of which had never been issued by any bookseller. When he died, in 1899, he had hardly a penny to his name, but he owned the finest stock in the world” (S. de Ricci, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts, p. 165).
Quaritch includes the ‘only’ 364 incunables in his own stock in another catalogue likewise issued in 1897, under the slightly different title Monuments of Typography and Xylography. Books from the first half Century of the Art of Printing, in which examples of early Italian printing form the lion’s share, with a stunning series of ninety-three incunables beginning with a copy of Augustinus’ De Civitate Dei, printed in Subiaco in 1465.
Both catalogues are introduced by identical lengthy Prefaces, in which Quaritch sketches the history of printing, presenting his collection as “the fruit of assiduous gathering during twenty years, and although made by a mere bookseller, is one which many museums might be proud of”.
The catalogue Monuments of Printing earned a review in the prestigious academic journal Bibliothèque de l’École de Chartes, which announces that “Le libraire Bernard Quaritch, de Londres, vient de publier un catalogue d’incunables tels qu’il est rare d’en voir aujourd’hui réunis sur les rayons d'une maison de libraire” (‘La collection d’incunables de B. Quaritch’, Bibliothèque de l’École de Chartes, 58, 1897, p. 743). Such admiration was well justified: after all, Quaritch was now in a position to open his catalogue with such a dream-book as an extraordinary illuminated Gutenberg Bible, printed on vellum and offered for the notable sum of 5,000 pounds.
The description includes the provenance of the copy: Quaritch had purchased it on the occasion of the 1897 sale of the first portion of the library of Bertram Ashburnham (see The Ashburnham Library, lot 436).
The copy, in its original leather binding, was bought by another outstanding name in international book collecting, the American businessman Robert Hoe (1839-1909). When the Hoe Library was in turn offered at Anderson Auction in New York in 1911 (see Catalogue of the library of Robert Hoe of New York, lot 269), the 42-line Bible presented by Quaritch in his 1897 Monuments was purchased by Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927) for what was then a record-setting price of $50,000. Today, the copy is one of the treasures preserved at the Huntington Library.
Dante is obviously well represented among the ‘Monuments of Printing’, beginning with an outstanding copy of the Commedia issued in Foligno on 11 April 1472, “one of the most famous books in the world”, and “precious from every point of view”.
The volume had likewise been purchased by Quaritch at the Ashburnham sale (see The Ashburnham Library, lot 1261). It had previously been in the hands of the exquisite book collector and Aldine scholar Antoine Augustin Renoaurd (1765-1853), who had commissioned its fine blue-morocco binding to François Bozérian the Younger. The copy offered by Quaritch at the price of 240 pounds was purchased by the Manchester collector Richard Bennett (1849-1930), and in 1902 it entered the library of New York banker J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913). This iconic sequence of names testifies to the great appeal of the Foligno Dante.
Both the Gutenberg Bible on vellum and the Foligno Commedia are of course noted in the aforementioned review of Quaritch’s catalogue, along with other highlights, each of which is referenced with its price quoted in francs:
The reviewer also rightly points out the fabulous prices requested for “les premier monuments de la typographie montrent avec quelle passion sont recherchées les éditions dont presque tous les exemplaires sont immobilisés dans les grandes bibliothèques” (‘La collection d’incunables de B. Quaritch’, p. 744).
Quaritch’s clientele was not limited to Anglo-American collectors, and the text printed on the last page of his Monuments of Printing provide a glimpse into his worldwide network:
Among the countless clients who acknowledged Quaritch’s “usefulness as a commission-agent at book-sales” the name of one great Italian collector in particular stands out: the musician Benedetto Maglione (1841-1892).
In his residence at Ponte di Chiaia in Naples, Maglione had amassed a prestigious collection of books and art, a passion which he shared with his wife Teresa Oneto. In 1934, the Enciclopedia Italiana dedicated a biographical entry to Maglione, compiled by one of the most famous figures of Italian book dealing and bibliophily, Tammaro De Marinis (1878-1969).
Maglione was especially interested in early Italian books, particularly works by Dante and chivalric literature, as testified by the sale catalogue of his library, which was sold in Paris in 1894 by the booksellers Paul, Luard and Guillemin.
As a label pasted on the front wrapper of the sale catalogue attests, Maglione’s library contained illuminated manuscripts, Books of Hours, volumes printed on vellum, copies with celebrated provenances, livres à figures, Aldine editions, engravings, fine bindings, and above all “premières éditions des oeuvres d’Arioste, Boccace, Dante, Pétrarque, Tasso, etc”, a stunning collection to which Quaritch had significantly contributed.
In fact, the Archive still maintained at the bookshop founded by Bernard Quaritch reveals the role played by the London bookseller in expanding the collection of the Neapolitan bibliophile. One of the major occasions for acquisitions came in March 1891, at the auction of a substantial part of the impressive library amassed by William Horatio Crawford (1815-1888) at his residence in Lakelands in Blackrock, near Cork. Once more, the sale was held at the London rooms of Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, and lasted from 12 to 25 March. The extraordinary collecting taste of the owner is well represented by the related catalogue, The Lakelands Library. Catalogue of the Rare and Valuable Books, Manuscripts & Engravings, of the Late W. H. Crawford. Quaritch purchased numerous books at the sale, both for his own stock (such as the Aldine Psalterium Graecum of ca. 1497/98, entered as no. 313 in the aforementioned catalogue Monuments of Printing) and as an agent for private collectors and institutional libraries, such the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
The Quaritch Archive preserves a list of about ten books purchased on behalf of Benedetto Maglione, with the heading ‘March 1891. B° Maglione Strada Ponte di Chaia Napoli. Crawford sale March 12-25 1891’. The total amount of money spent by Maglione is 510 pounds and 10 shillings, including Quaritch’s commission of 10%. Among the titles listed is Dante’s Commedia issued in Foligno in 1472 (see The Lakelands Library, lot 901).
The catalogue of Maglione’s Library presents a nearly complete series of fifteenth-century editions of the Commedia, beginning of course with the Foligno Dante, which is described as an “Exemplaire de la bibliothèque Crawford orné au verso du premier f. d’une bordure peinte en or et en couleur” (Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de feu M. Benedetto Maglione de Naples, lot 338):
Further, it was thanks to Quaritch that Maglione was able to obtain from the Crawford sale another extraordinary, and even rarer ‘Monument of Printing’, or – to borrow the words of H.P. Kraus – one of the ‘black tulips’ of bibliophily: the first edition of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, issued in Ferrara in 1516 (The Lakelands Library, no. 162). This very copy had been sold to Crawford by none other than Quaritch himself, who had first included it in another of his legendary catalogues, the Catalogue Comprising the Best Works in French, German, Italian, Spanish & Portuguese Literature, issued in 1884-1885 (lot 26257).
While the Crawford-Maglione copy of the Foligno Commedia is now part of The Scheide Library, gifted by William H. Scheide (1914-2014) to the Princeton University Library (see a digitized version here), we are very pride to have had in our hands the Crawford-Maglione Furioso of 1516, which had once also belonged to another great Italian collector, the Ferrarese Giuseppe Cavalieri (1834-1918), the latter having purchased it from the Paris sale of 1894. Long considered lost, we presented this remarkable re-discovered copy in an exhibition organized in October 2016 at the PrPh Books Gallery in New York to celebrate the 500th anniversary of its first appearance in print.
The extraordinary story of this copy – including a sequence of curious events related to its antique-style binding – is narrated in the catalogue Orlando Furioso. Five Exceptional Copies, Including the Editio Princeps (see the complete catalogue here); it is a story in which Bernard Quaritch – as with so many episodes in the history of great book dealing – played an incomparable role.
How to cite this information
Margherita Palumbo, “Bernard Quaritch and Dante," 1 April 2020, https://www.prphbooks.com/blog/quaritch-and-dante-hd4d2-t45xl. Accessed [date].This post is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.