58 BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 1573 Printing Of Cicero’s Letters, Previously Believed To Have Been Owned By Elizabeth I Sixteenth-century printing of Cicero’s letters in a very early 17th-century English calf binding gilt-stamped on the front and back covers with the crowned falcon device used by Anne Boleyn. For over a century this copy was believed to have been from the personal library of her daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, and its distinguished provenance includes the great libraries of Lord Amherst of Hackney and Mortimer L. Schiff. It was long assumed by many experts, booksellers, auction houses, and collectors that English bindings from this period bearing the crowned falcon device were from Elizabeth I’s personal library. When the catalogue of Lord Amherst’s book collection was published in 1906, this copy of Cicero was described as “From the library of Queen Elizabeth, having stamped on the sides her maternal device, adopted by Anne Boleyn after her daughter’s birth in 1533.” However, without documented evidence of royal provenance, books from this period in plain calf bindings with the crowned falcon badge are now assumed to be trade bindings and not royal ones. This copy was likely bound by Vincent Williamson of Eton, and matches characteristics of other Williamson bindings with the crowned falcon stamp, including a 1540 edition of Cicero’s letters in the possession of the Royal Collection Trust. (They also note that their copy was “historically believed to have been owned by Elizabeth I before her ascension to the throne.”) From the collections of Lord Amherst of Hackney, and renowned collector Mortimer L. Schiff, with his morocco bookplate. Interior fine. Joints expertly repaired, minor restoration to extremities of contemporary calf gilt binding. A beautiful volume with fascinating provenance. 78CICERO, Marcus Tullius. Epistolarum ad Atticum, Libri XVI. Eiusdem Epistolarum ad Q. Fratrem, Libri III. Paris, 1573. Octavo, contemporary full brown calf gilt, covers stamped in gilt. $9500
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