Beschreibung:

SMITH, Joseph, Consul (1682-1770) – Giovanni Baptista PASQUALI. Bibliotheca Smithiana, seu Catalogus librorum d. Josephi Smithii Angli per Cognomina Authorum dispositus . Venice: J.B. Pasquali, 1755. Two parts in one volume, 4° (239 x 175mm). Title printed in red and black, engraved vignette reproducing Smith's bookplate, by A. Visentini. (Minor soiling on the title.) Contemporary Italian vellum, ruled and tooled in gilt, calf spine label gilt, gilt edges (lacking ties, light soiling). Provenance : Edward Sullivan 1st Baronet (1822-1885, judge; bookplate).
SMITH, Joseph, Consul (1682-1770) – Giovanni Baptista PASQUALI. Bibliotheca Smithiana, seu Catalogus librorum d. Josephi Smithii Angli per Cognomina Authorum dispositus . Venice: J.B. Pasquali, 1755. Two parts in one volume, 4° (239 x 175mm). Title printed in red and black, engraved vignette reproducing Smith's bookplate, by A. Visentini. (Minor soiling on the title.) Contemporary Italian vellum, ruled and tooled in gilt, calf spine label gilt, gilt edges (lacking ties, light soiling). Provenance : Edward Sullivan 1st Baronet (1822-1885, judge; bookplate). The third (first complete) edition of the Smith catalogue, THE SULLIVAN COPY : ‘an ardent and lifelong bibliophile, [Sullivan] had at his death amassed one of the most valuable private libraries in the kingdom’ (ODNB). ‘The most important link in Venice itself between the city and the outside world was an Englishman, Joseph Smith, who became the greatest art patron of his day’ (Haskell, p. 299). Smith, who was British consul at Venice, sold this valuable collection to George III in 1762 for £10,000. It became the nucleus of the ‘King's Library’, now in the British Library. The invaluable 348 page Appendix reprints in full the prefatory texts of all of Smith’s incunabula. De Ricci, pp. 54-55; Morrison, ‘Records of a Bibliophile’, in The Book Collector , vol. 43, no. 1 (Spring 1994), p.56; Taylor, pp. 261-62.