Burchiello, Rime comentate dal Doni, Vicenza, 1597, contemporary French red morocco gilt for Bartolomeo Cenami

BURCHIELLO, DOMENICO DI GIOVANNI. Rime del Burchiello fiorentino comentate dal Doni. Et piene di capricci, fantasie, umori, stravaganze, grilli, frenesie, ghiribizzi, argutie, motti, e sali. Ritocche da quel che poteva già offendere il buon lettore. Vicenza: heirs of Perin, 1597 [bound with:]

MANFREDI, GIROLAMO. Libro intitolato il perche. Tradotto di latino in italiano. Venice: Lucio Spineda, 1600

AN EXPURGATED EDITION OF BURCHIELLO'S POPULAR POETRY, prepared by Giuseppe Umbellotti, IN A CHARACTERISTIC BINDING FOR BARTOLOMEO CENAMI.

Sixteen Parisian armorial bindings displaying a stamp of a rampant lion within a cartouche of foliage are known. This insignia had been recorded in the Manuel de l’amateur de reliures armoriées françaises (Paris, 1929) among "fers non identifiés" (Pl. 1860, 2–3). The arms were recognized as those of Bartolomeo Cenami by Pierre Berès in 1963, and as belonging to the Cenami family by a Sotheby’s cataloguer in 1977, but not until 1991, when Jean Balsamo published two bindings in Bulletin du Bibliophile, did Bartolomeo Cenami emerge into the light as a bibliophile. The sixteen bindings cover books printed between 1558 and 1601, in French (6), Latin (5), Italian (3), and Spanish (2), printed at Rouen (4), Paris (3), Medina del Campo (2), Venice (2), and Augsburg, Basel, Leiden, Lyon, and Vicenza (one in each city). Seven bindings are in the Bibliotheca Brookeriana.

Bartolomeo di Girolamo di Ridolfo Cenami (1556–1611) was the scion of a Lucchese merchant and banking family, who arrived in Paris about 1578, and quickly became a royal creditor to Henri III. He forged a similar relationship with Henri IV, as did two of his sons, Vincenzo (1581–January 1651) and Abbé Paolo (1587–October 1651), with Cardinal Mazarin. Bartolomeo kept a house in Paris in the rue du Grand-Chantier and a “Pavillon” at Charenton (Le clos Louvet), which was used occasionally by Henri IV for diplomacy and by the Dauphin Louis XIII for discreet meetings. Bartolomeo died in Paris and was interred in the church Saint-Julien-des-Enfants-Rouges.

Another of Bartolomeo’s sons, Ferdinando Gerolamo, had remained in Lucca to look after the family’s interests, dwelling there in the Palazzo del Decanato di San Michele, and the Villa Cenami at Segromigno (bought by Bartolomeo in 1599). After his premature death, his brothers Vincenzo and Paolo resolved to bequeath all family properties at Lucca to his widow, Felice Saminiati. About half of the sixteen volumes contain the later inscription "Dello Studio di Casa Cenami," in one instance with "Casa" overwriting "Ba…". Since four of the volumes also have ownership inscriptions of Lucchese collectors of the eighteenth century—Bernardino Baroni, historian of Lucca, author of a genealogical memoir of the Cenami family; Francesco Maria Conti ; Giovanni Francesco Viligiardi (no. 13); and Niccolà di Sirignano, dated Lucca 1738—it is likely that the library was dispersed in Lucca, not in Paris. The books perhaps were transferred by Bartolomeo himself, during the period when he was Lucchese ambassador to Florence (1594–1599), or posthumously, by his eldest son, Vincenzo, who returned permanently to Lucca about 1636. None of the sixteen books is listed in a post-mortem inventory of Paolo’s library taken in Paris, 31 October 1651.

All of the Cenami bindings have foliate centre- and cornerpieces of a type associated with a Parisian binding atelier established by Nicolas Ève (d. c. 1582), royal binder to Henri III, and his son Clovis, royal binder to Henri IV.

For the full list of bindings with Cenami arms, please refer to the catalogue note for Bibliotheca Brookeriana: Magnificent Books and Bindings, New York, 11 October 2023, lot 41. The present volume is item number 2 in the list.