Bidspirit auction | Santos, José dos — CATÁLOGO

Santos, José dos — CATÁLOGO DA IMPORTANTE E PRECIOSISSIMA LIVRARIA QUE PERTENCEU AOS NOTÁVEIS ESCRITORES E BIBLIÓFILOS CONDES DE AZEVEDO E DE SAMODÃES. Oporto. Tip. da Empresa Literária e Tipográfica. 1921–1922. 2 vols.: 690; 870 pp. 26.0 × 18.0 cm. E. - Catalogue of the famous sale of the library of the Counts of Azevedo and Samodães, one of the most significant dispersals of a private Portuguese library ever to take place. The collection was formed by the 1st Count of Azevedo, D. Francisco Lopes de Azevedo (1809–1876), a passionate bibliophile who was assisted in the acquisition of many of his books by the great writer Camilo Castelo Branco, and was subsequently inherited by his cousin, the 2nd Count of Samodães, D. Francisco de Azeredo Teixeira de Aguilar (1828–1918). The sale, held in 1921–1922, comprised 3,722 lots, among which were many truly rare works, from the mid-fifteenth century to the time of the sale. The catalogue was compiled by José dos Santos, with an introduction by the erudite writer and bibliophile Anselmo Braamcamp Freire, and is enriched with bibliographic notes, accounts of various editions of the works described, and numerous facsimiles of title pages, frontispieces, engravings, and place and date registers. The Azevedo-Samodães catalogue remains, a century after the sale, an indispensable reference tool for the history of the Portuguese book. Copy entirely annotated by hand, with annotations in regular ink script in the fore-margins, recording the hammer price of each lot. These annotations transform this copy into a first-hand document on the Portuguese antiquarian book market of the 1920s. Illustrated with numerous facsimiles of title pages, frontispieces, engravings, and other bibliographic elements of the works described. Contemporary cloth bindings (quarter leather) in both volumes.