A second-century history, in the original Latin, celebrating the glory of the city, republic and empire of Rome and their people from the city's mythical foundation by Romulus to the early years of the reign of Augustus (Emperor 27 BCE-14 CE). It appears here in the first edition edited by Nicolaes Blanckaert the younger (1624-1703).
The most remarkable feature of the present copy is its pseudo-Ottoman binding, formerly described as a contemporary binding made in Venice. In 1997 Anthony Hobson identified six remarkable bindings, including the present one, that he concluded were produced in the 1880's or 90's by a group of forgers in Bologna who had also forged other less spectacular bindings. They acquired books in genuine but plain 17th-century bindings and added decoration, in these six cases elaborate and artistic pictorial decoration. They passed off their additions as original and sold the books at high prices. The great American collector Robert Hoe acquired one before he published his 1895 catalogue of bindings, and the 1911 catalogue for the sale of his library proudly illustrated it in the frontispiece as one of the greatest highlights of the collection. It sold for $2600 (the equivalent of about $70,000 today), but soon after the sale L.A. Baer (and later also E.P. Goldschmidt) denounced Hoe's celebrated binding as a fake. Henri Harrisse had already noted in 1903 that a group of forgers in Bologna had been falsifying bookbindings and Hobson attributes the six pictorial forgeries to them.
Giuseppe Cavalieri (1834-1918) in Ferrara acquired the book in its pseudo-Ottoman binding apparently after 1908 (when he published a catalogue of his library) but before 1914 (when it was auctioned with other items from his collection). The 1914 catalogue described the binding as Venetian, ca. 1650 and illustrated its front board. Hobson, writing in 1997, was unable to identify its owners after 1914, so he had to study it via the 1914 catalogue.
With part of the head margin of the engraved title-page cut away and the lower outside corner of T2 torn off, neither affecting images or text, the fore-edge of the engraved title-page slightly tattered with a crease in the right edge of the image, a brown spot in one leaf and occasional minor browning, but otherwise in good condition. The binding has a small tear at the foot of the spine, another at the foot of the fore-edge of the back board, minor damage to the other corners, a crack in the spine, a few minor scuffs, and some of the painted colours have rubbed off, but the tooling remains clear and in good condition. There is no front paste-down. A notorious and artistic forged binding reflecting the late 19th-century interest in Islamic art. STCN (5 copies); for the present copy in its pseudo-Ottoman binding: Catalogue de la collection de M. le Comm. Gius. Cavalieri ... (Munich, Hugo Helbing, auctioned at Milan, 25-30 May 1914), lot 604, ill. in plate 21; A. Hobson, "A binding decorated c. 1880-90, probably in Bologna" in: The book collector XLVI (1997), pp. 93-96, item 5 ("ownership unknown").