George Kolbe writes:

SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, Gaius, et al. Scriptores historiae Augustae. Basel: J. Froben and N. Episcopius, July 1533.

From the Renaissance Pillone library, with a fore-edge painting by Cesare Vecellio, cousin and pupil of Titian, with medallion portraits of thetwelve Caesars.

Folio (320 x 222mm). Printer's device on title and final leaf, fine woodcut initials from the Kinderschule (final gathering with old repairs alonggutter). Contemporary Basel binding of blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards, title in gilt on front cover, brass clasps and catches, from thePillone Library with painted edges by Cesare Vecellio, edges painted blue with medallion portraits of the twelve Caesars (top catch with tear);modern box. Provenance: [Bonaccorso Grino (d.1553, Italian and German scholar in the service of Charles V) - Giovanni Grino (son of the preceding)] -Odorico Pillone (1503-94; edges) - Sir Thomas Brooke (1830-1908; bookplate) - sold by his heirs in 1957 as part of the Pillone collection to PierreBerès (Catalogue Bibliothèque Pillone, 1957, no. 97) - G. Nordback (bookplate) - Dorothy Jayne Pedrini Shea (book label) - [sold at Christie's as lot262 on 3 December 2010 for $40,000].

This work is one of the 172 volumes decorated by Cesare Vecellio (1521-1601), a cousin and pupil of Titian, in whose studio Vecellio worked untilTitian's death. The Pillone Library was formed over several generations, the earliest books acquired in the late 15th century by Antonio Pillone(d. 1533). His eldest son Odorico expanded the library through numerous individual purchases and with one large group of northern books acquired inabout 1550 from his kinsman by marriage, Bonaccorso Grino, who had been in the service of Charles V of Bavaria. It was almost certainly Odorico (orperhaps his son Giorgio) who commissioned Vecellio in the 1580s to decorate the books. 154 were painted by Vecellio with fore-edges and 21 withoriginal drawings on their vellum covers by him and other artists.

Among Vecellio's major paintings is the altarpiece at Belluno Cathedral. In addition to the painted fore-edges executed for the Pillones,Vecellio also painted a room in the Palazzo Pillone with the Four Seasons and the Rape of the Sabines. It was in his famous book on costume andmanners, De gli habiti antichi et moderni (1590), that Vecellio mentions the library and other collections of the Pillone family as well astheir generous hospitality.

To read the complete lot description, see:
SUETONIUSTRANQUILLUS, Gaius, et al. Scriptores historiae Augustae. Basel: J. Froben and N. Episcopius, July 1533.(http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/books-manuscripts/suetonius-tranquillus-gaius-et-al-scriptores-historiae-6041128-details.aspx)

George adds:

STRADA, Jacopo (1507-1588). Imperatorum romanorum omnium orientalium et occidentalium verissimae imagines ex antiquis numismatis.Zurich: Andreas Gesner, 1559.

The folio edition of one of the most celebrated iconographical series of the Renaissance, describing the medals in the collection of JacopoStrada, an antiquary of Mantua.

The 118 portraits of Roman Emperors were based on the octavo-format, Zurich edition of 1557, and enlarged for the benefit of craftsmen decoratingmajolica, furniture, glass and ceramics. Flötner's arabesque ornaments had been previously published in the rare Kunstbuch (Zurich, 1549).The decoration on the verso of folio 50 includes a small panel containing his initials and tools, with date 1546. Adams S-1919; Goldsmith PrintedBooks of the Renaissance, pp. 76ff.

To read the complete lot description, see:
STRADA, Jacopo(1507-1588). Imperatorum romanorum omnium orientalium et occidentalium verissimae imagines ex antiquis numismatis. Zurich: Andreas Gesner, 1559.(www.christies.com/lotfinder/books-manuscripts/strada-jacopo-imperatorum-romanorum-omnium-orie-6041106-details.aspx)

George writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
FORE-EDGE PAINTING (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n39a31.html)
MORE ON FORE-EDGE PAINTING (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n41a27.html)