Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1731. Italian merchant's notebook, manuscript on paper, 1568-1596, Venetian russet morocco with plaquette by Valerio Belli.

Italian merchant's notebook, manuscript on paper, 1568-1596, Venetian russet morocco with plaquette by Valerio Belli

Estimate

7,000 - 9,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

[ITALIAN MERCHANT'S NOTEBOOK]. Notebook recording the birth of children, purchase of houses, and other memoranda, dated between 1568 and 1593


a handsome venetian plaquette binding, featuring the design Address to a Married Couple by Valerio Belli, and signed in the exergue "VA. VIN. F." (Valerius Vincentius fecit, i.e. Valerio Belli of Vicenza (1468-1546)).


Anthony Hobson recorded just two “stationery bindings” (books bound with blank pages made to be written in) with extravagant plaquette decoration, both Venetian, and about the same date (1550-1560). This one is decorated on both covers by a plaquette designed by the gem engraver and medallist Valerio Belli (1486?-1546), depicting two men and three women, identified (by Douglas Lewis) as “An address to a married couple” and by Molinier as “Allocution” and by Gasparatto as “Allocuzione”. The other blank book features two plaquettes by Belli, “Adoration of the Shepherds” and the “Entombment” (Hobson 42a and 43a, the binding in Paris, BnF, ital. 2119). Hobson also records use of the “An address to a married couple” plaquette on two printed books and nineteen Greek manuscripts bound for Diego Hurtado de Mendoza at Venice, 1540-1546, all now in El Escorial. An incuse matrice apparently was taken to France, where it was applied after 1556 on a copy of L'histoire naturelle et generalle des Indes (Hobson 73y and Fig. 109).

8vo (146 x 119 mm). Manuscript on paper, 78ff of which 21 with text, others blank, paper watermarked with a paschal lamb with banner, inscribed in a circle surmounted by a Latin cross (not in Briquet). (Worming in margins at beginning and end.)


binding: Venetian russet morocco plaquette binding (148 x 118 mm), c. 1550-1560, border of multiple blind lines, frame of repeated gilt arabesque within gilt fillets, larger corner gilt floral ornaments, in centre an oval surrounded by flames containing a gilt oval plaquette (47 x 39–51x42 mm) Address to a Married Couple by Valerio Belli, signed in exergue "VA. VIN. F." (Valerius Vincentius fecit), two pairs of ties, spine with 3 bands, compartments with leafy tendrils, housed in a modern green cloth box. (Spine ends and corners neatly repaired.)


provenance: A fifteenth century merchant, probably from Central Italy. acquisition: Purchased in 1997 from Bredford Libri Rari, Lugano. references: A. Hobson, Humanists and Bookbinders (Cambridge, 1989), p. 235, census no. 73; ibid., "Plaquette and Medallion Bindings. A Supplement", Bulletin de Bibliophile, Paris, 1994, no.1, pp. 29-30, census no. 73/z; compare Hobson’s Renaissance book collecting (Cambridge 1999), for three books featuring Belli’s "Address to a married couple" plaquette, all three bound in the shop of Andrea di Lorenzo (nos. 234, 641, 870); for the plaquette, see Douglas Lewis, in Valerio Belli Vicentino 1468- c. 1546 (Vicenza 2000), p. 133, no. 54; Davide Gasparotto, “Catalogo delle opere” in Valerio Belli Vicentino 1468-c. 1546 (Vicenza 2000), p. 338, no. 83

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