Estienne, Dictionarium seu Latine linguae thesaurus, Paris, 1543, 3 volumes, brown morocco Apollo and Pegasus binding by Niccolò Franzese for Grimaldi

ESTIENNE, ROBERT. Dictionarium, seu latinae linguae thesaurus, non singulas modo dictiones continens, sed integras quoque Latine et loquendi et scribendi formulas... Editio secunda. Paris: Robert Estienne, 20 June 1543

A SPLENDID SET OF APOLLO AND PEGASUS BINDINGS BY NICCOLÒ FRANZESE FOR GRIMALDI, THE ONLY THREE-VOLUME SET IN ANTHONY HOBSON'S CENSUS, AND A KEY SET OF VOLUMES IN ONE OF THE GREAT DETECTIVE STORIES IN THE HISTORY OF BOOKBINDING.

The Bibliotheca Brookeriana contains a group of sixteenth-century gilt bindings featuring a painted medallion stamp of Apollo and Pegasus. The bindings were attributed to various owners before Anthony Hobson, a former head of Sotheby’s Book Department, discovered the name of the collector: Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (c. 1524-c. 1612), of the Genoese banking family. With the assistance and advice of the humanist scholar Claudio Tolomei, Grimaldi acquired a collection of books bound in varying colours of morocco leather, according to the contents of the book, and stamped with the impresa of Apollo and Pegasus: folio volumes had a vertical stamp (as on the present volume), and smaller books a horizontal one. The bindings were made in Rome, predominantly by the binders Marcantonio Guillery and Niccolò Franzese. Hobson identified 144 volumes from this collection, which was assembled when Grimaldi was still a young man. Unusually, it was put together over a short period of time, in the late 1540s, rather than assembled throughout his lifetime. The present volumes have the distinction of being the only three-volume set in the entire collection. The four-volume 1542 Eusebius is bound in two (Hobson, no. 49) and the remainder of the books are all single volumes.

Beyond playing an important role in an animated twentieth-century book historical debate surrounding the identity of the collector of the Apollo and Pegasus, these volumes contain powerful material reminders of how censorship overshadowed the reception of the printed word in sixteenth-century Europe. Standing in stark contrast to the delicate craftsmanship of the binding is the crude manner in which the first three leaves of the first volume have been excised by an early censor. Although this dictionary would appear to have been harmless enough in content, its author, Robert Estienne (1503-59), the great French printer and scholar, had been regarded with suspicion by the theologians of the Sorbonne, with several of his editions of the Bible condemned in 1546. Estienne's 1550 edition of the Greek New Testament caused further offence, cementing his association with Protestantism, and leading to his classification as a "condemned author". In 1552, Estienne chose to relocate from France to Geneva, affording him increased press freedom. There, he published Ad censuras theologorum (1552), a robust defence of his printing of the scriptures.

Whilst the first three leaves have fallen casualty to the scissors of the censor, the next is reserved for his pen. On fol. *4 of the preliminary verses are three inscriptions, dated 1559 and 1584, and 1633, each in the hand of a different Dominican inquisitor. The first of these inscriptions is an unexpectedly moving document, subtly evoking a tension between the censor's moral duty to treat the text as an object of condemnation, on the one hand, and his evident aesthetic appreciation for these magnificent bindings, on the other hand:

F[rater] Hieronymus or[din]is prae[dictorum] Inq[uisit]or Geneuen[sis], Dictionariu[m] seu linguae latinae Com[m]entariu[m] uel Thesaur[um], una cu[m] duobus alijs tomis sub huiusq[ue] formosa ligatura juxta Decretu[m] ex Instruct[ione] s[anctae] Ro[manae] et U[niversa]lis Inq[uisition]is atque facultatem R[everendissi]mi et Ill[ustrissi]mi D.D. Cardinalis Alex[andri]ni ad lecturam admittit. Genuae die xxviii Septembris 1559. (Brother Jerome of the Order of Preacheres, Inquisitor at Genoa allows the reading of this Dictionary of Commentary or Thesaurus of the Latin Language, which with two other volumes is in this beautiful binding. This is done according to the decree and under instruction of the holy Roman and universal Inquisition and according to the faculty granted by the most reverend and most illustrious Lord Cardinal Alessandrino. Genoa, 28 September 1559).

The second inscription is notable for naming "ill[ustrissimo] Viro Domino Johanni Baptistae Grimaldo Genuensi et eius filiis" (the most illustrious signore Giovanni Battista Grimaldi and his sons) as the owners of the books — a significant piece of proof used by Hobson to confirm the identity of Grimaldi as the patron. Also of note is the hardline tone of the message, which contains explicit references to mutilating offending passages ("hac tamen lege ut nomina deleantur author[um] qui in Indice librorum prohibitorum damnati sunt, et quicquid ex eis mutuo desumptu[m] fuit, si t[ame]n de religione vel moribus tractat" (with the proviso that the names of the authors who are condemned in the Index of Prohibited Books should be scored out, as should anything taken from them, if it pertains to religion or morals)). It is likely that the three preliminary leaves were removed at this point.

Whilst the first two inscriptions are in the hands of Genoese inquisitors (where Grimaldi was elected Senator in 1591), the 1633 inscription is signed by Brother Decius Carrega in "Panormi" (Palermo). After Grimaldi’s death in about 1612, the collection was split between two branches of the family, one in Naples and one in Genoa. However, the splendid volumes of the Thesaurus evidently wandered early, and were in Sicily by the 1630s.

For another magnificent Apollo and Pegasus binding in the present sale, see lot 1644 (Dante).