[INCUNABULA REFERENCE - ITALY]. Catalogo della libreria di Giuseppe Martini. Compilato dal possessore da servire come saggio per una nuova bibliografia di storia e letteratura italiana. Parte prima: Incunabuli [all published] by Martini, Joseph (Giuseppe) - 1934

Milan: Ulrich Hoepli, 1934. First Edition. Large 4to. xxvii, 324 pp., with numerous b/w illustrations in the text. Original printed wrappers (spine chipped at head and tail, corners bumped, some scuffing or soiling to wrappers). Internally excellent. *NOT* ex-library! Edition limited to 300 copies. In this finely printed catalogue there are exhaustive descriptions of 405 fifteenth-century editions of Italian authors. Martini (1870-1944) was a formidable scholar -- and collector -- of Italian literature whose own private collection was one of the finest in the world at that time. For an assessment and celebration of his achievements: Da Lucca a New York a Lugano: Giuseppe Martini libraio tra Otto e Novecento (E. Barbieri, editor), 2017, especially Annette Popel Pozzo's "The Impact of Giuseppe Martini for the International Antiquarian Booktrade at the Beginning of the 20th Century" and William Stoneman's "The Role of Giuseppe Martini in Building the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Collections now in North American Libraries."

¶ Copy CLIX of 300. From the famed Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana (sale at Christies NY, 2005, lot 1275), with B.H. Breslauer's coded purchase price on the final blank.