In the book club
JOHN KER, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe (1740–1804) had a library in St James’s Square considered to be one of the finest in Europe. The prize of his collection was Boccaccio’s Decameron, printed by Christopher Valdarfer in Venice in 1471. When Roxburghe’s library came up for auction in May 1812, there was intense excitement, the Valdarfer Decameron billed in the sales catalogue as the very holy grail of books: ‘No other perfect copy is yet known to exist; after all, the fruitless researches of more than three hundred years.’
By the time it came under the hammer on June 17, the nation’s bibliophiles were in a fever of anticipation. The auction did not disappoint, with the selling for a record £2,260 after a bidding war between 2nd Earl Spencer and the Marquess of Blandford. It remained the most expensive book
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