January 1515

As noted, in the early sixteenth century this book was in the possession of Giovanni Arnolfini, possibly the politician and ambassador Giovanni di Niccolò di Michele di Arrigo Arnolfini of Lucca (1485–1551), and later in the century it belonged to Johann Huldrych Grob (1571–1621), a protestant minister in Zurich.

The provenance of the sophisticated sixteenth-century Northern European binding of blind-stamped and blind-rolled pigskin is still unknown (possibly Switzerland ?). Its blind-tooling includes the Greek inscription “πολλά ἔχει σιωπή καλά”, translating as “Silence has its virtues”. For certain the binding Northern style testifies to the immediate success of Aldine editions on the international market.

Keynes.H.1.33, binding