1. Anthony Hobson, Humanists and bookbinders: the origins and diffusion of the humanistic bookbinding 1459-1559, with a census of historiated plaquette and medallion bindings of the Renaissance (Cambridge 1989), pp.145-146 & p.249 nos. 139 (Cicero) and 140 (Cato) only. The two supplements to the Census published by Hobson in 1994 and 2000 do not add examples of these plaquettes.
2. The opac of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France records a copy (RP-13913) with the title also in French: Les effigies de XII Illustres Philosophes et Poetes anciens, Tirées des Marbres et Medalles antiques au plus pres du naturel. Nouvellement taillées et mises en lumiere, with imprint: Paris, Philippe [Gaultier] de Rouillé, 1566. The matrice for Cicero was used in the Rouillé edition of M. Tullij Ciceronis Opera omnia quae exstant, a Dionysio Lambino (Paris 1566). A.P.F. Robert-Dumesnil, Le peintre-graveur français (Paris 1850), VIII, pp.54-57 nos. 91-102 (“Nous ne craignons pas d’avancer que tous ces portraits sont de pure fantaisie” [link]). Jacques Levron, René Boyvin, graveur angevin du XVIe siècle: avec le catalogue de son oeuvre et la reproduction de 114 estampes (Paris 1941), pp.68-69 nos. 58-69.
3. A copy with different Latin title (only) and imprint “Lutetiae Parisiorum 1566” is digitised (Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, ID: 1387-634; [link]). André Linzeler, Inventaire du fonds français. Graveurs du seizième siècle (Paris 1932-1938), I, pp.183-187, recording multiple engraved copies (direction of some portraits is reversed). This suite was copied (twelve plates) also in Italy: Illustrium philosophorum et sapientium effigies ab eorum numismatibus extractae (Venice: Girolamo Olgiati, 1568). Compare, Cato: [image source]; copy [link]; reversed copy [link]; Cicero: [image source]; copy [link]; reversed copy [link]; Plato: [image source]; reversed copy [link]; Xenocrates: [image source]; copy [link]; reversed copy [link].
4. An oval medallion in glazed terracotta portraying the bust of a man after the antique was discovered recently among “Les fouilles du Grand Louvre - Cour Napoléon et Carrousel” (Musée national de la Renaissance - Château d'Écouen; 1983-1986, EP 996) and given an attribution to Bernard Palissy: “Palissy s’inspire ici de la suite de portraits d’auteurs Antiques gravée par René Boyvin dans les Illustrium Philosophorum et poetarum veterum effigies (Paris, 1566).” Bruno Dufay, Yves Kisch, Pierre-Jean Trombetta, Dominique Poulain, Yves Roumégoux, “L’atelier parisien de Bernard Palissy” in Revue de l’Art, no. 78 (1987), pp.33-60 (Fig. 63) [link].
5. Boyvin’s engraved portrait of Clement Marot (dated 1576) was copied closely by an anonymous medallist (London, British Museum, M.8722/M.2152; Mark Jones, A catalogue of French medals in the British Museum, I: 1402-1610 (London 1982), p.264 nos. 270-271).
6. Howard M. Nixon, “English Bookbindings XXII: A binding by the Morocco Binder, c. 1563” in The Book Collector 6 (1957), p.278; H.M. Nixon, “English bookbinding” in Transactions: fourth International Congress of Bibliophiles, London, 27 September-2 October 1965 (London 1967), pp.81-94 (“… trained in one of the best Paris ateliers of the day; and was therefore almost certainly a Frenchman”); H.M. Nixon, “Elizabethan gold-tooled bindings” in Essays in honour of Victor Scholderer (Mainz 1970), pp.219-270 (pp.237-243, listing 24 bindings); H.M. Nixon, Sixteenth-century gold-tooled bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York 1971), pp.184, 186; H.M. Nixon, “Some Huguenot bookbinders” in Proceeding of the Huguenot Society of London 23 (1981), pp.319-329; Mirjam Foot, in Lambeth Palace Library: Treasures from the collection of the Archbishops of Canterbury (London 2010), p.106 (“As the Dudley binder probably worked until c. 1562 and the Morocco binder started around 1563-64, it is likely that these two groups were the work of one atelier. Possibly the Dudley binder left or sold tools to the Morocco binder, the latter being his successor.”)
7. Hobson, op. cit. 1989, p.145.
8. Washington, DC, Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14600 Copy 3; Nixon, “Elizabethan gold-tooled bindings,” op. cit., p.238 no. 17; Fine and historic bookbindings from the Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, DC 1992), no. 3:4.
9. They appear also on Plutarchus, Le vite de gli huomini illustri greci et romani (Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1564), in the British Library, Henry Davis Gift. For that binding, see H.M. Nixon, “Elizabethan gold-tooled bindings” op. cit., p.237 no. 10 (“decorated with three tools and a pair of corner blocks which can be identified with certainty on other members of the group”); Mirjam M. Foot, The Henry Davis Gift: A collection of bookbindings, Volume 2, A catalogue of North-European bindings (London 1983), no. 46.
(1) John Jewel, A defence of the Apologie of the Churche of Englande, conteininge an answeare to a certaine booke lately set foorthe by M. Hardinge, and entituled, A confutation of &c. By Iohn Iewel Bishop of Sarisburie (London: Henry Wykes, 27 October 1567)