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STATIUS, Publius Papinius (45?-96?). Sylvarum libri V. Achilleidos libri XII. Thebaidos libri II. Orthographia et flexus dictionum graecarum omnium apud Statium . Venice: Aldine Press (Andrea Torresano), January 1519/20. Aldine 8 o (158 x 101 mm). Italic and greek types, printed guide letters. Woodcut Aldine anchor device on title and verso of last leaf. (Minor soiling to title, light stain and very small tear to foremargin of fol. a8, scattered light marginal foxing, small portion of foremargin of q2 cut away.) ROMAN APOLLO AND PEGASUS MEDALLION BINDING OF CA. 1546-1547, BOUND FOR GIOVANNI BAPTISTA GRIMALDI BY NICCOL FRANZESE, dark brown morocco gilt over pasteboard, sides panelled with blind and gilt fillets ornamented with leafy tools and fleur-de-lys tools at corners, name of the author on both covers, in the center of each cover the oblong medallion of Apollo driving his two-horsed chariot toward Mount Helicon, Pegasus standing on its summit, the mount showing remains of green pigment, surrounded by Grimaldi's motto KPKQKWKSKAKIKHKOKXKIKWKS "straight and not crooked", with " instead of first " in "KWKXKIKWKS, the lettering of the inscription very irregular, spine in compartments with alternate single and double raised bands, one of the small bands removed to make room for the (later) title, gilt edges, two pairs of free endpapers (no visible watermarks) (old restorations to head and tail of spine and adjacent areas of covers, head of spine charred and defective, small cracks to leather of spine and worming to tail, joints split at head, corners rubbed, lower medallion somewhat rubbed); morocco two-part pull-off case and cloth chemise by Riviere. Provenance : Maggs Bros. 1926. One of the great bibliophilic mysteries was solved in the early 1970s when Anthony Hobson convincingly established the identity of the original owner of a large surviving group of Italian Renaissance bookbindings decorated with an emblematic plaque of Apollo and Pegasus, whose ownership had been variously attributed to Demetrio Canevari, physician to Pope Urban VII, Paul III's bastard son Pier Luigi Farnese, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, Apollonio Filareto, and Guglielmo Libri's fanciful "Mecenate". Hobson proved that the true owner was Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (ca. 1524-1612), a member of a patrician Genoese banking family who moved in the circle of Farnese patronage, and whose library was formed during a few years in the 1540s with the help of his mentor and advisor the Sienese humanist Claudio Tolomei (1492-1555). Tolomei was the founder of a literary academy, the "Accademia della Virt", dedicated to the support of Tuscan as a language of equal merit to the classical tongues. Surviving correspondence between the two show that Tolomei took direct responsibility for the formation of Grimaldi's library, purchasing the books for him and presumably commissioning their bindings, for which he probably devised Grimaldi's motto and impresa . Intended as a gentleman's library, limited in size but comprehensive in scope, Grimaldi's library was neatly color-coded, the Ancients (Latin classics) being bound in red morocco, and the Moderns (contemporary Italian and some Spanish literature) bound in various dark hues. Two different dies of the medallion were used, a horizontal stamp, as here, for the quarto and octavo volumes and a vertical stamp for the folio volumes. Anthony Hobson's census lists 144 volumes containing 169 printed works, of the probable 200 volumes that the library must have composed; by an apparent oversight his list omits the present volume, which was noted by both G.D. Hobson and Tammaro de Marinis. Comparison of its tools to those reproduced by Hobson show it to have been bound in the shop of Niccol Franzese, one of three binder/booksellers identified by Hobson as having worked for Grimaldi, all three of whom undoubtedly supplied the books as well as their morocco bindings. A native of Reims, Niccol Franzese (i.e., Nicolas Fery), reside