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Early books and rare bindings are shining stars in Bellmans most successful book auction since lockdown
Dante Alighieri (c. 1265-1321). La Comedia. Estimate: £2,000 - £3,000. Hammer price: £9,000.
WISBOROUGH GREEN
.-Bellmans held one of its most successful Printed Books, Manuscripts and Maps Auctions on Thursday, 15th July with 91% sold by lot resulting in a total of £105,655 (hammer price, £128,888 incl. BP).
Top lot of the sale was an early book - a 1484 copy of Dante Alighieri s La Comedia, with the commentary of Christophoro Landino, which counts among previous owners members of the Strozzi family and the Athenaeum Library. It carried an estimate of £2,000 - £3,000, but reached three times its high estimate and sold for £9,000 hammer price (plus buyer s premium). Among other early books with the same estimate was the Summa theologiae. Pars secunda: secunda pars, by Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 - 74), edited by Ludovicus de Cremona and one of the earliest and rar