Featured Help with ID of 1500's Cicero Book

This is a long shot, but I see there are some real experts here such as Ex libris that may help. I have a small collection of antique books, this particular one has long puzzled me as it is missing the cover page. From what I gather in prior research, it consists of the writings of Cicero and dates to the late 1500s just about. I'd appreciate any info you may have, possibly pertaining to the type of print, typeface, binding, etc.

 

@Ex Libris
@2manybooks

 

The book you show is called Epistolae ad Atticum, ad M. Brutum, ad Quintum fratrem and printed in 1571 in Florence in Italy. Only a part of the book survived in your example.

The last page in your book (page 336) is somewhere in the middle of the entire book:


This is the title page:


This book on Google Books:

https://www.google.nl/books/edition...ad_M_Brutum_ad_Quin/qaQ6AAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

 

If you want to know more about the publisher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giunti_(printers)

 

By the way: I am not a real expert, I know just how to search Google Books.

 

You are too modest, @Ex Libris .

 

Wow thank you very much!! Fascinating. I thought it would impossible yet you discovered it in the first reply, and so quickly! Thank you very much! So this means it is a later rebinding of whatever was remaining possibly as a 2 volume set. I think this makes it one of my oldest books!

 

Are split re-bindings as this common? Generally how much does that and a missing cover hurt a value usually (not asking about this piece specifically, just so I know from a collector's perspective)? I have another book that is missing a leather binding but has paper ones and from what I gather books were commonly sold un bound where one would bring it to a binder. Are those type of books with temporary but original paper covers rarer, how are they referred to as?

 

It is not as difficult as you think. If you have a part of the text you can search it on Google books with quotes around it. Two years ago I bought a collection with about 350 book illustrations mostly from the first half of the 16th century. After a lot of learning I managed to find more than 80% of the fragments because of the text on the reverse of the pictures.

 

Yes, it is quite common that books were rebound in more of less volumes.

Your books is part of a series and is not complete (at least it lacks the title page). Also does your book not have the original binding.

Normally your book is worth say $200 as it is one of the more common 16th century books, that was used by Latin and rhetoric students. Without the title page and extra part I guess it will be worth only a quarter of the original value unfortunately. It is a very cool book though!

 

Indeed, I always knew it wasn't much in value, but it means a lot to me because of it's subject which is a fascinating resource into the eventual decline of the Roman Empire, but now even more as it is one of my oldest books! Thank you very much! I have a few more mysteries that I will post later.

 

Wow, I tried google books search before but I never tried using quotes. Do you search in a corrected manner (i.e. v becomes u)? Fascinating that you were able to pinpoint the title and in addition the publishing date and location as well. Very impressive!

 

Most of the time I try it both ways: with a “u” or a “v” and a “s” or an “f”.
I think this is because of the different OCR (Optical Character Recognition) methods that were used wile scanning the books. Most of the time I try to find phrase without an “s”. I also use the date function in Google Books a lot if I can roughly date the book by it’s appearance.

 

To give a small example:

Here is a specific text onbthe reverse of one of my illustrations:


I have highlighted the two phrases I would use in Google Books.

So I can search on "immoto concordes viuere" and "Virus rauco de gutture" and I know the book is before 1550.




I have got some results:

And I have an exact match

 

Truly fascinating

Truly fascinating! Thank you very much for this tutorial! It's amazing that such tools exist in the first place, and I imagine it only gets better year after year as more books get archived!

 

This only works with older books of course. I think 90% of the older books are scanned already.