Two of the three volumes of the first Aldine edition of Cicero’s Orations (published January-August 1519) are known with the cypher of their owner, Gerhard von Aich, on lower covers. Volume I was acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1882 and published by W.H. Weale in 1895, with a line drawing of the cypher.¹ Volume III appeared on the market in 2010, when it was acquired for the Bibliotheca Brookeriana.

Gerhard von Aich was one of two sons of Johannes von Aich (1468-1519), Bürgermeister of Cologne, and Sybilla (Beilgen) von Reidt (1483-1553).² The Aich (also known as Aquis, Aquitanus) were an old and prominent family of Cologne. In 1509, Gerhard’s father donated an altarpiece to the Romanesque church of Groß St Martin;³ in 1516, he was ennobled by the Emperor Maximilian, and he also became a Knight of Jerusalem. The medallist Friedrich Hagenauer produced large cast portrait medals of Gerhard’s father and mother, his brother Johannes (1510-1549), sister Sibylla (d. 1584) and her husband Adolf von Straelen.⁴ Gerhard is depicted together with his father and brother on the male side of a tryptych painted by Bartholomäus Bruyn d. Ä.⁵

Gerhard matriculated in the university of Bologna in 1533, came home, matriculated in the university of Cologne (17 June 1535),⁶ then returned to Bologna in 1541, and graduated with a degree in civil law on 15 May 1542.⁷ He was working at the Court of Appeal in Prague in 1548, and when he died in 1563 he was a Kaiserlicher Hofrat to Ferdinand I and a Comes palatinus minor.⁸ Gerhard married Anna von Rottkirchen, daughter of Jacob von Rottkirchen (d. 1541) and Mechthildis von Lyskirchen; the couple had no children.

Monogram of Gerhard Aich: Aich Dr utiusque iuris (detail no. 1)

During his studies in Bologna, Gerhard presumably acquired the three-volume set of Cicero’s Orationes. A local binder bound it for him in a conventional manner, with the title of the book surrounding a medallion on the upper covers, and Gerhard’s name (as a monogram) tooled directly on the lower covers. On the two surviving volumes, the centre of the upper covers has been cut out and patched with leather. It is possible that a classical bust, or other ornament, once filled this area; alternatively, the book might have been a gift from Aich to a fellow student, whose monogram appeared there, and was afterwards deleted.

Left Detail no. 2 – Centre, Right Details no. 1

Volume I was discussed by E.P. Goldschmidt, who recognised it as a binding made in Bologna for a German student, but failed to decipher the monogram and to identify its owner.⁹ In 1960, volume I was described and illustrated by Tammaro De Marinis, crediting Ilse Schunke for interpreting the monogram as the letters v A D R I (Aich Dr utiusque iuris).¹⁰ Volume III was published by Anthony Hobson in 1998 before its acquisition for the Bibliotheca Brookeriana.¹¹

Hobson considered that the cover decoration was impressed from a two-part plaque. Plaques allowed a binder to create rich decorative effects without the labour of applying individual tools. They were popular especially in Bologna, where at least three different models were in use from about 1520 to 1555, and Hobson recognised a plaque of identical design on a binding executed in Bologna for Marcantonio Totila.¹² As they were produced in casts, multiple copies of the same plaque existed, with slight variations. These variations suggested to Mirjam Foot that the decoration was not in fact achieved from plaques, but by binders using individual tools copying a model. For discussions of this decoration, see the posts in this Notabilia file [link] and [link].

bindings

(1) Marcus Tullius Cicero, Orationum volumen primum (Venice: Heirs of Aldus Manutius & Andreas Torresanus, January 1519)

provenance
● Gerhard Aich, supralibros, monogram vADRI (Aich Dr utriusque iuris)
● unidentified owner, inscription at top of title page “XXVII”
● unidentified owner, inscription “Antonij Pacij F” on folio *2 recto
● Baccio Bandinelli, gift inscription on title-page to the Florentine Accademia degli spensierati of which he was a member: “Baccio Bandinelli Riecercatto [academic name of Bandinelli?] Accademico Spensierato Don Questo Libro Alla Accademia delli Spensierati Questo Di 11 di Aprile 1603”
● Hieronimus Gratius Persusinus, two inscriptions (one dated 1696)
● Libreria antiquaria Arrigoni Luigi, Corso Venezia, Milan, printed label
● Victoria & Albert Museum, acquisition stamp and date “22.3.82 | 285”
● London, National Art Library, Drawer 51

literature
William Henry Weale, Bookbindings and rubbings of bookbindings in the National Art Library, South Kensington. 2: Catalogue (London 1894), p.57 no. 239 (Art Libr., 285-1882)
Tammaro De Marinis, La Legatura artistica in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI (Florence 1960), no. 1315 & Pl. 224


(2) Marcus Tullius Cicero, M. T. Ciceronis Orationum volumen tertium (Venice: Heirs of Aldus Manutius & Andreas Torresanus, August 1519)

provenance
● Gerhard Aich, supralibros, monogram vADRI (Aich Dr utriusque iuris)
● Effisio Paoletti (1784-1849), inscriptions “E. Effisio Paoletti di Recanatti” and “E. Effisio Paoletti Roma” on lower endleaf
● Renzo Salvadè (d. 2018)
● Libreria Docet, Bologna
● T. Kimball Brooker (purchased from the above, 2010) [Bibliotheca Brookeriana ID #0265; offered by Sotheby’s, Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library, The Aldine Collection, A–C, New York, 12 October 2023, lot 311]

literature
Hobson, op. cit., p.174
Hobson & Leonardo Quaquarelli, op. cit., no. 46 (illustrated)