Aristotle’s Dialectica in a Painted Lyonese Mosaic Binding from the Collections of Charles Fairfax Murray, Lucius Wilmerding, and Cornelius John Hauck
Aristotle. Dialectica Aristotelis, Boethio Severino interprete, Adiectis iam recens Angeli Politiani in singulos libros Argumentis. Lyon, Sebastianus Gryphius, 1551.
A spectacular example of Renaissance bookbinding and Lyonese humanist printing: Aristotle’s Dialectica printed by the great Sebastian Gryphius and preserved in one of the most extraordinary painted wax-mosaic bindings of the sixteenth century, decorated with emblematic landscape medallions in brilliant polychrome. The volume comes from the celebrated collections of Charles Fairfax Murray, Lucius Wilmerding, and Cornelius John Hauck.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
a–z8 A–L8 = 542 pp., 1 leaf.
With decorative four- and five-line initials and two woodcut printer’s devices featuring different griffin motifs on the title and final leaf.
Octavo (169 × ca. 106 mm).
The volume contains Boethius’ Latin translation of Aristotle’s Topics and Sophistical Refutations, two foundational texts of classical logic that later became central to medieval scholasticism and Renaissance intellectual culture. Angelo Poliziano’s arguments for each book are included.
The present 1551 edition is a reprint of Gryphius’ earlier Lyon editions and forms part of the remarkable revival of Aristotelian dialectic within sixteenth-century humanist scholarship.
Physical Description & Binding
Contemporary brown calf binding from Lyon over five raised bands with blind-tooled spine and richly gilt covers decorated with interlaced “grolieresque” arabesques painted in orange, green, blue-green, black, and white in wax-mosaic technique. At the centre of each cover is an elongated oval medallion containing miniature landscape painting. Gilt board edges and gauffered gilt edges. Preserved in a modern dark blue half morocco case lined with velvet. Spine expertly restored.
The binding ranks among the most unusual and visually striking examples of sixteenth-century French decorative bookbinding. Particularly remarkable are the painted emblematic medallions, which replace the conventional armorial supralibros with mysterious miniature landscapes. One depicts a mountainous landscape dominated by a towering tree-like plant rising before a blue mountain, together with an enigmatic white lattice structure whose symbolic meaning remains uncertain.
Lyon: “La Capitale de la Civilisation Française”
In the first half of the sixteenth century, Lyon rivalled and often surpassed Paris as the intellectual and commercial centre of French Renaissance culture. Sebastian Gryphius (1491/93–1556), described by contemporaries as both a “giant of Lyonese printing” and a “scholar of the first order,” stood at the centre of an extraordinary humanist network that included Rabelais, Dolet, Marot, Scève, Alciati, and many others.
The present volume perfectly reflects this milieu: a compact philosophical text elevated into an object of aristocratic bibliophily through sophisticated colour decoration and humanist symbolism.
Aristotle, Logic, and Renaissance Humanism
Aristotle’s creation of formal logic shaped the intellectual structure of the Western tradition more profoundly than almost any other philosophical achievement. Through Boethius’ translations, these texts became foundational for medieval scholasticism and the university culture of Europe.
Renaissance humanists often presented themselves as opponents of scholastic dialectic in favour of rhetoric and eloquence. Yet the remarkable publication history of this very text in Lyon — repeatedly printed by Gryphius throughout the 1540s and 1550s — demonstrates the continuing vitality of Aristotelian logic within Renaissance intellectual life.
The elegant italic type of the present edition, praised for both beauty and clarity, further reflects Gryphius’ reputation for producing some of the finest scholarly books of sixteenth-century France.
The Mystery of the Lyonese Painted Bindings
The binding belongs to a celebrated but still somewhat enigmatic group of Lyonese painted mosaic bindings. Scholars have long debated whether such bindings were truly produced in Lyon or instead in Paris. Jean Toulet argued that these colourful strapwork bindings, frequently found on books printed by Gryphius and other Lyon printers, were likely a distinctive local specialty — perhaps even a kind of early publisher’s binding.
The present copy provides particularly compelling evidence for this theory. Another Aristotle edition printed in Lyon in 1556 survives in an almost identically painted binding using the same decorative plate and nearly identical medallion imagery. The most plausible explanation is that the same collector deliberately commissioned matching Aristotelian volumes in this extraordinary style.
Provenance
Charles Fairfax Murray, whose 1913 private catalogue illustrated this very copy as the frontispiece to volume I — one of only two books from his vast collection considered worthy of colour reproduction.
Lucius Wilmerding (1880–1949), New York banker and member of the Grolier Club; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 6 March 1951, lot 405 ($525).
Cornelius John Hauck (1893–1967); Christie’s, New York, 26–28 June 2006, lot 180.
French private collection.
Literature
Baudrier VIII, 250; BM STC French 28; Cranz 56; Davies, Fairfax Murray, French, no. 19 (this copy, illustrated in colour); Preußische Staatsbibliothek 66936; Schwab no. 611; Beraldi, Bibliothèque I, no. 1; Vingtrinier, pp. 160ff.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, lot 85:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II
