Three bindings made for Georg Zollner von Brand (vom Brandt, im Brant, auf dem Brand, uf dem Prandt) are known. Each is lettered on the lower cover with his initials G.Z.V.B. and “Dimidium plus toto” (the half is more than the whole, a Hesiodic maxim adapted by Erasmus into an adage), and on the upper cover with a title. They cover Aldine editions of Cicero published in 1522-1523. The three volumes entered the library of the Cistercian Kloster Bronnbach, diocese of Würzburg, passing after its suppression, in 1802, into ownership of the princely house of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg. In 1985, the remnants of the Bronnbach library, together with books from the Benedictine abbey of Neustadt am Main, and from the Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg Hofbibliothek, were consigned to auction in Munich. The three Zollner von Brand bindings were offered together in lot 61.¹

Georg was the youngest of three sons of Hans Zollner von Brand (1454-1533) and Dorothea Kammermeister (Camerarius; 1497-1553), a sister of Hieronymus Camerarius (1490-1545), counsellor and secretary to the bishop of Bamberg, and of the classical scholar Joachim Camerarius (1500-1574).² Georg is identified by Knod as the student who matriculated at Erfurt in 1520,³ at Wittenberg in 1524,⁴ at Leipzig in 1522/1525,⁵ and at Bologna in 1529, where in 1530 he was nominated Procurator.⁶ While occupying that office, the binding on a manuscript of the Statutes of the German Nation (1497-1516) was refurbished, and Georg’s name and that of another Procurator, Adam Werliess (1490-1559), were lettered on the lower cover.⁷ Georg was nominated Procurator substitutus in 1533, Sindicus in 1534, and on 18 February 1535 he was promoted doctor of civil and canon law. Georg became a counsellor to the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg (Hochstift Bamberg) and to the Elector Palatine Friedrich II (kurfürstlich-pfälzische Rat); he died in 1564 without leaving male heirs.⁸

The binding of this set of Cicero was attributed by Hobson to the “Pflug and Ebeleben Binder”, a shop in Bologna catering for German students at the university, including Damian Pflug, Nikolaus von Ebeleben, and Heinrich zu Castell.⁹

bindings

(1) Marcus Tullius Cicero, M. T. C. Epistolae familiares accuratius recognitae MDXXII (Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1522)

provenance
● Georg Zollner vom Brandt, supralibros, initials G.Z.V.B. on lower cover
● inscribed “Friderich Zöllner vom Brandt me iure possidet” on title-page (Aldine Press) [a Friderich Zollner is identified by Biedermann, op. cit., as Domkapitular and Domscholaster in Bamberg]
● Kloster Bronnbach, Würzburg (Cistercian monastery), inscription “Ex brombac Biblioth.” (Aldine Press)
● Fürstlich Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg, Schloss Kleinheubach, inkstamp on title
● Sotheby Parke Bernet GmbH, Wertvolle Bücher, dekorative Graphik: Bücher aus den Bibliotheken der ehem. Zisterzienserabtei Bronnbach an der Tauber, der ehem. Benediktinerabtei Neustadt am Main, der Fürstl. Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg’schen Hofbibliothek sowie aus dem Besitz privater Sammler, Munich, 4 November 1985, lot 61 [part lot - 4 volumes altogether: Epistolae familiares (Aldine Press, 1523), De Philosophia (2 volumes, Aldine Press, 1523), and Officiorum libri III (Frankfurt: Egenolff Heirs, 1561); “… die 2 ersten Werke mit Marginalien in roter Tinte von alter Hand”) [lots 1-796 as “Klosterbibliothek Bronnbach” via the Hofbibliothek]
● A. & C. Sokol, London (opac)
● Los Angeles, University of California, Z233 A4C48ef 1522 (opac, link)

literature
Hobson, op. cit., p.167 (“UCLA 113407”)
Hobson & Quaquarelli, op. cit., p.24
The Aldine Press: Catalogue of the Ahmanson-Murphy Collection (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London 2001), no. 210


(2-3) Marcus Tullius Cicero, M. T. Ciceronis De philosophia volumen primum, in quo haec continentur. Academicarum quaestionum. Editionis primae liber secundus. Editionis secundae liber primus. De finibus bonorum et malorum libri V. Tusculanarum quaestionum libri V [- Secundo volumine haec continentur M. T. C. De natura deorum libri III. De diuinatione libri II. De fato liber I. Scipionis somnium, quod è sex de rep. libris superest. De legibus libri III. De Vniuersitate liber I. Q. Ciceronis De petitione consulatus ad Marcum fratrem liber I] (Venice: Heirs of Aldus Manutius & Andreas Torresanus, May 1523)

provenance
● Georg Zollner vom Brand, supralibros, initials G.Z.V.B. on lower cover
● unidentified owner, underlining and marginalia in red ink
● Kloster Bronnbach, Würzburg (Cistercian monastery), inscription “Ex Biblioth. Brombac” on both title-pages
● Sotheby Parke Bernet GmbH, Wertvolle Bücher, dekorative Graphik: Bücher aus den Bibliotheken der ehem. Zisterzienserabtei Bronnbach an der Tauber, der ehem. Benediktinerabtei Neustadt am Main, der Fürstl. Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg’schen Hofbibliothek sowie aus dem Besitz privater Sammler, Munich, 4 November 1985, lot 61 (part lot; sold with the Epistolae familiares (see above), and with an incomplete copy of the Officiorum Libri III (Frankfurt am Main: Heirs of Christian Egenolff, 1561) [lots 1-796 as “Klosterbibliothek Bronnbach” via the Hofbibliothek]
● A. & C. Sokol, London; their Catalogue 9 (London 1986), item 24 (£900; illustrated)
● T. Kimball Brooker, purchased from the above, 1986 [Bibliotheca Brookeriana #0327]
● Sotheby's, Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library, The Aldine Collection, A–C, New York, 12 October 2023, lot 316 ($4064; catalogue online, [link]) [RBH N11294-316]
● G. Scott Clemons

literature
Hobson, op. cit., p.167 (“Chicago, Dr T. Kimball Brooker”)
Hobson & Quaquarelli, op. cit., p.24 (“Chicago, Dr T. Kimball Brooker”)
Aldine Press, op. cit., p.161 (“another book of the same owner … is in the collection of T. Kimball Brooker, Chicago”)