Boccaccio, Libro delle donne illustri, Venice, 1545, contemporary Venetian olive-green goatskin by the Fugger Binder for Cardinal Perrenot de Granvelle

BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI. Libro di m. Gio. Boccaccio delle donne illustri, tradotto per Giuseppe Betussi. Con una additione fatta dal medesimo delle donne famose dal tempo di m. Giovanni fino a i giorni nostri & alcune altre state per inanzi; con la vita del Boccaccio & la tavola di tutte l'historie et cose principali che nell'opra si contengono. Venice: Comin da Trino for Andrew Arrivabene, 1545

FIRST ITALIAN TRANSLATION of Boccaccio's tales of famous women, first published in Latin, BOUND FOR CARDINAL PERRENOT DE GRANVELLE.

Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517–1586) studied at Padua, Pavia, and Louvain, and through the influence of his father, an influential advisor to the Emperor Charles V, was appointed Bishop of Arras at the age of twenty-one. In his episcopal capacity, he attended several diets of the Empire, proved his abilities in a succession of diplomatic assignments, and in 1550 succeeded his father as secretary of state. At an unknown date, Granvelle began to patronize the Venetian bookseller and printer Gabriele Giolito (their earliest surviving communication is dated 1 October 1547; see Nuovo & Coppens, I Giolito e la stampa: nell’Italia del XVI secolo [Geneva 2005], pp. 279-305, for transcripts of nineteen letters). In 1547, Giolito (probably with assistance) gathered some 300 volumes—Aldine press books, vernacular Italian books from his and other presses, and Greek manuscripts—and dispatched them in four crates to Granvelle in Augsburg.

The great majority of the books in these shipments were bound by the largest producer of fine bindings in Venice, known as the “Fugger Binder” on account of his work for Johann Jakob Fugger. The Fugger Binder bound the Aldines in the 1547 shipments in skins of varied colors, the Greek manuscripts exclusively in red, and all the books in Italian in olive-green morocco tooled in silver.

On this and other volumes in the 1547 shipments, a band was painted (in blue, or purple) across the gilt fore-edges to form a rectangular label, and the title written thereon in gold letters. This innovation, an attempt to replicate the appearance of classical libraries, has been credited to Paolo Manuzio, who in 1541–1542 distributed presentation copies of his classical publications with such horizontal fore-edge titles. Granvelle received one of Manuzio’s presentation copies via Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, probably in early 1543, when he was contemplating the creation of a large library. After a hiatus of three or four years, Granvelle adopted the practice, conceiving a library in which the books are shelved vertically, with the fore-edge outward. (See Brooker, “Paolo Manutio’s Use of Fore-Edge Titles for Presentation Copies (1540–1541): Part I [Part II],” in The Book Collector 46 [1997], pp. 27–68, 193–209, as well as Brooker, ed., Index of Best Authors by Subject Classification compiled in 1547 by Antoine Morillon for Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle including a Selection of Greek Manuscripts in the Library of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, n.p., 2014, pp. 13-17). Subsequently, perhaps in Besançon, Granvelle’s woodcut armorial stamp (lettered “Durate”, a motto taken from the Aeneid, I, 207) was added on a blank page in each volume; it appears here on the verso of the title-page. 

For a similar binding, see Bibliotheca Brookeriana: Magnificent Books and Bindings, 11 October 2023, lot 5. For a series of books in the present sale bound for Granvelle, see lots 1638 (Courchetet), 1679 (Estienne), 1696 (Gambara), 1720 (Guevara), 1749 (Lévêque), 1793 (Petrarch), and 1864 (Vives).