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One of the earliest of the Italian books, and, to use the words of Dr. Dibdin, perhaps the most notorious volume in existence, was the celebrated Boccaccio, printed at Venice by Valdarfer in 1471. This book deserves particular mention, because of an extraordinary contest which once took place for its possession between two wealthy bibliomaniacs.
With a like appropriate reference to the common bond of sympathy, the Roxburghe toasts included the uncouth names of certain primitive printers, as Valdarfer himself, Pannartz, Fust, and Schoeffher, terminating in "The cause of Bibliomania all over the world."
The oft-told story of the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471, carried off at the Roxburghe sale in 1812, at £2,260 from Earl Spencer by the Marquis of Blandford, and re-purchased seven years after at another auction for £918, has been far surpassed in modern bibliomania.
The version which bears the strongest marks of completeness and authenticity, was found among the papers of Mr Hazlewood, of whom hereafter. It is here set down as nearly in its original shape as the printer can give it: The Order of y^e Tostes. The Immortal Memory of John Duke of Roxburghe. Christopher Valdarfer, Printer of the Decameron of 1471.
Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five hundred years, and M. Van Praet groped in vain amidst the royal alcoves in Paris, to detect a copy of the famed Valdarfer Boccaccio. Another class I distinguish by the term Vocabularies. Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" is a book of great learning. To read it is like reading in a dictionary.
The pecuniary stake at issue, and the consequent excitement when the Valdarfer Boccaccio was knocked off, so far exceeded all anticipation, that at the festive board a motion was made and carried by acclamation, for meeting on the same day and in the same manner annually. And so the Roxburghe Club, the parent of all the book clubs, came into existence.
The primitive Roxburgheians used to sport these toasts as a symbol of knowingness and high caste in book-hunting freemasonry. Their representative man happening, in a tour in the Highlands, to open his refreshment wallet on the top of Ben Lomond, pledged his guide in the potent vin du pays to Christopher Valdarfer, John Gutemberg, and the others.
In May, 1812, the library of the Duke of Roxburgh was sold. The sale lasted forty-two days, we abridge the story from Dibdin, and among the many curiosities was a copy of Boccaccio published by Valdarfer, at Venice, in 1471; the only perfect copy of this edition.
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