Ilustrated right, bottom: a fine, tall copy of the 1611, King James Bible in contemporary calf bearing the royal arms. Possibly bound for use in one of the royal chapels, it went to Heritage of Los Angeles at $310,000 (£213,795).
These two were sold at the Freilich sale which took place at Sotheby’s New York on January 10 and 11.
Thucydides and a King James Bible
A superb example of “the quintessential Italian Renaissance book”, a 1545 first of the first Italian translation of Thucydides in a fine Apollo & Pegasus binding made for the famous library of G.B. Grimaldi – a collection of some 200 key works formed under the supervision of the Roman humanist Tolomei. It sold for $140,000 (£96,550).
