Thirty-one of these bindings featuring a gold-tooled coat of arms of a rampant lion supporting a fleur-de-lys in his dexter paw are now recorded, all but one on Italian texts, the great majority printed in the decade 1560-1569. Those that retain their original back have a title lettered horizontally, in the top or in the second compartment, indicating that the books were intended to stand on the shelf in the modern way, upright, backs facing out. On 29 bindings, the initials “I” and “R” flank the armorial cartouche; on one (a Latin text, no. 30 in List below), the arms stand alone, and on the last (an empty binding, no. 31) the cartouche is surmounted by a mitre and also without initials. The arms were at first misidentified: in 1859, as belonging to James V of Scotland, or to James I of England (whilst James VI of Scotland);1 in 1870, as belonging to the Bouffier family in France;2 however, by 1891 it was recognized that they are the arms of the Ruiz, a family of Spanish origin, resident in Rome (the surname Italianised as Ruis).3 In 1926, G.D. Hobson listed four Ruiz bindings,4 Anthony Hobson in 1953 raised that number to seven,5 and by 1965 “about ten” of “these famous bindings” were known.6 In 1975, Anthony Hobson identified 23 bindings,7 and in 2004 Michel Wittock added another.8 Since then, seven more volumes have come to light.9
The Ruiz octavos are simply decorated, with gilt filet borders, and floral tools in the corners. The quartos are more elaborately tooled, some having broad frames, others an arabesque centrepiece and/or cornerpieces. The cartouche or shield enclosing the rampant lion and fleur de lys varies, likewise the rampant lion tool. In 1975, Anthony Hobson assigned the bindings to three different shops, of which Maestro Luigi’s was one; when he reconsidered the matter, in 1991, he concluded that they were produced in a single workshop, which he called the “Ruiz Binder”, presuming him to be the successor to Luigi.10 The books, printed between 1533 and 1571, probably were bound within the space of a few years.
G.D. Hobson first drew attention to the Ruiz family chapel in the Roman church of S. Caterina della Rosa dei Funari, where their lion and fleur-de-lys insignia adorn the pilasters and are moulded into the stucco of the chapel arch. In the pavement outside the chapel is a ledgerstone recording details of several family members, which enabled Anthony Hobson in 1975 to identify “I.R.” as Girolamo (Jéronimo) Ruiz. This slab, laid presumably in 1605, is inscribed with a shield bearing the Ruiz arms, the names and dates of two family members: Abate Filippo (Felipe) Ruiz (1512-18 May 1582), who had endowed the chapel, and commissioned its decoration from Girolamo Muziano and Federico Zuccari; and his great nephew, Pietro (Pedro) Ruiz (1573-29 August 1605). Girolamo Ruiz is named thereon as paying for the upkeep of the chapel.11
1. S. Leigh Sotheby & John Wilkinson, Catalogue of the choicer portion of the magnificent library, formed by M. Guglielmo Libri, London, 1-15 August 1859, lot 836 (“From the library of James V, King of Scotland, in the contemporary Venetian binding, gilt edges, having his arms and I.R. stamped in gold on sides, which are also ornamented with the fleur-de-lys”); Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, The Hamilton Palace Libraries. Catalogue of the first portion of the Beckford Library, removed from Hamilton Palace, London, 30 June 1882-13 July 1882, lot 1608 (“fine copy from the Library of James VI of Scotland, in purple morocco, gilt gaufré edges, the sides covered with gold tooling having in centre the lion rampant ‘or’ holding the fleur-de-lis ‘argent’ between the initials I.R.”); also: Catalogue of the third portion of the Beckford Library, 2-13 July 1883, lots 2270, 2581; Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, Catalogue of the very choice collection of rare books, illuminated, and other manuscripts, books of prints, and some autograph letters, formed by Mr. Ellis, of 29 New Bond Street, London, 16 November 1885, lots 655, 672, 686 (“from the library of James VI of Scotland, with his initials J.R.”).
2. Joannis Guigard, Armorial du bibliophile: avec illustrations dans le texte (Paris 1870), I, p.109; Nouvel armorial du bibliophile (Paris 1890), II, pp.74-75.
3. See the entries for the Maurolico (no. 30 below) in Charles Isaac Elton, A catalogue of a portion of the library of Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton (London 1891), p.167 (“olive mor., richly tooled, with the arms of the Ruizi family”); and by Edward Gordon Duff & S.T. Prideaux, in Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of bookbindings (London 1891), Case E, no. 22 (“olive morocco; the sides being elaborately tooled in gold; the arms of the Ruizi family of Rome are impressed in the centre of each cover”). Edward Gordon Duff, Scottish bookbinding, armorial and artistic: A paper read before the Bibliographical Society, February 18, 1918 (London 1920), p.12 (“A word of warning may be given as to some bindings occasionally put forward as specimens made for James VI … The stamp is really that of the Italian family of Ruizi.”)
4. Geoffrey Hobson, Maioli Canevari and others (London 1928), p.126 nos. 16-19.
5. Anthony Hobson, French and Italian collectors and their bindings illustrated from examples in the library of J.R. Abbey (Oxford 1953), p.143. Three bindings were added to Hobson’s census by Graham Pollard, “Changes in the style of bookbinding, 1550-1830” in The Library, fifth series, 11 (1956), pp.71-94 (p.83).
6. Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of valuable printed books and fine bindings from the celebrated collection; the property of Major J.R. Abbey, London, 21-23 June 1965, lot 589.
7. Anthony Hobson, Apollo & Pegasus: An Enquiry into the formation and dispersal of a Renaissance library (Amsterdam 1975), pp.219-220: “Appendix IX: Bindings with the arms of Jeronimo Ruiz”, nos. 1-21 (i.e. 23 volumes, as no. 6 is in 3 vols.). In Anthony Hobson & Paul Culot, Italian and French 16th-century bookbindings (Brussels 1991), p.49, states “twenty-four volumes are recorded with the Ruiz arms”, the addition apparently the Olaus Magnus (no. 16 in our list).
8. Ovid (unlocated, ex-Michel Wittock). Michel Wittock, “Une reliure inédite pour Jeronimo Ruiz” in E codicibus impressisque, Miscellanea Neerlandica 20 (2004), pp.217-222.
9. Alamanni (British Library), Caesar (Windsor, Royal Library), Garimberto (Chicago, T.K. Brooker), Sansovino (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek), Thomagni (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland), and Magnus (unlocated, cited by Anthony Hobson & Paul Culot, Italian and French 16th-century bookbindings (Brussels 1991), p.49).
10. Hobson & Culot, op. cit., p.49. Also assigned to the Ruiz Binder by Hobson is the copy of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562), bound for Graf Jakob Hannibal von Hohenems (Altemps; 1530-1587), now Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, Typ 525 62.157. Judging from illustrations, an unlocated copy of Curtius Rufus De’ fatti d’Alessandro Magno (Venice: Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1559), likewise bound for Giacomo Annibale Altemps, latterly in the Beckford-Hamilton Palace Library, the collections of William Loring Andrews and Cortlandt F. Bishop, was produced in the Ruiz Binder’s shop.
11. “Hier.s Rvis Patruo Benem. Ac F. Opt. F. C. | Ex Redd.bvs Cappellae”. Transcribed by Pietro Luigi Galletti, Inscriptiones romanae infimi aevi Romae exstantes (Rome 1760), II, p.434 no. 44; Vincenzo Forcella, Iscrizioni delle chiese e d’altri edificii di Roma dal secolo 11 fino ai giorni nostri, IV (Rome 1874), p.338 no. 814. Manuel Espadas Burgos, Buscando a España en Roma (Barcelona 2006), p.153 (photograph).
12. 17 December 1566 (Archivio di Stato, Roma, Notai Tribunale Auditor Camerae, atti Johannes Savius, vol. 6469, cc.1037-1041); 21 November 1576 (ASR, Collegio Notai Capitolini, vol. 1427, atti Antonio Maria Rapa, cc.90-94). For the references to the chapel in these testaments, see Rosamond E. Mack, Girolamo Muziano, PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1972, pp.173-174 (transcriptions); Patrizia Tosini, Girolamo Muziano 1532-1592: dalla maniera alla natura (Rome 2008), pp.175, 360-364 no. A15.
13. Alessandro Ruiz was re-elected to this post on 24 March 1545; see Juergen Schulz, “Titian’s ceiling in the Scuola Di San Giovanni Evangelista” in The Art Bulletin 48 (1966), pp.89-95 (p.90).
14. Archivio Storico Capitolino, Roma, Camera Capitolina, cred. I, t.22 c.126v, and cred. I t.1, c.84r; see Donatella Manzoli, in Antonio Ongaro, Hospitium musarum et carmi latini (Rome 2014), p.8.
15. Il primo processo per San Filippo Neri nel codice Vaticano latino 3798 e in altri esemplari dell’Archivio dell’Oratorio di Roma, Volume IV: Registri del secondo e del terzo Processo (Città del Vaticano 1963), pp.94-95 (“Girolamo Ruiz, del q. Alessandro e di Taddea Centanni, nato a Venezia, di anni 68 circa.”).In a deposition given in Rome in 1607, during the process of beatification of Ignazio di Loyola, Girolamo’s age is given as 65; see Monumenta Ignatiana, ex autographis vel ex antiquioribus exemplis collecta. Series quarta. Scripta de sancto Ignatio de Loyola, Societatis Jesu fundatore (Madrid 1918), II, p.806 no. 22 (“Mag.cus D. Hieronymus Ruiz, romanus, annorum 65, juratus et examinatus die 9 Octobris 1607; ‘mio padre si chiamaua Alessandro Ruiz, et mia madre Thadea Centana, veneta; et uiuo delle mie entrate; io mi confesso ogni domenica et mi comunico nella chiesa del Giesù…’”).
16. Pietro married Vittoria Frangipane, who is named together with their children, Filippo, Pirro, and Virginia, on the tombstone in S. Caterina dei Funari. See Il primo processo per San Filippo Neri, Volume I: Testimonianze dell’inchiesta romana, 1595 (Rome 1957), pp.232-234 no. 61 (deposition of “Petrus Ruisius, filius ill.is d.ni Hieronimi Ruisii et d.nae Virginiae Cribelliae de Ruissa, romanus”, 28 September 1595) and pp.335-337 no. 104 (deposition of Vittoria, 25 October 1595).
17. Claudio De Dominicis, Membri del Senato della Roma Pontificia: Senatori, Conservatori, Caporioni e loro Priori e Lista d’oro delle famiglie dirigenti (secc. X-XIX) (Rome 2009), pp.68, 134, 136. Manzoli, op. cit., p.8.
18. Rossella Pantanella, “Documenti: La Confraternita del Gonfalone” in L’Oratorio del Gonfalone a Roma: il ciclo cinquecentesco della Passione di Cristo (Milan 2002), p.217.
19. Archivio Storico Capitolini, Roma, Camera Capitolina, cred. XIII, I serie, t.88, c.314v and cred. XIII, I serie, t.13, c.192r (cited by Manzoli, op. cit., pp.46-47).
20. “All’illustre, & gentilissimo Sig. Padron mio osseruandissimo, il Sig. Girolamo Ruis … la sua casa è vera stanza delle Muse, & albergo perpetuo, doue tutti i virtuosi dalle tempesti di questa età nemica del tutto delle virtù, quasi in sicuro porto fuggono, & si ricourano …” (A2v). [seen BL]
21. “A gl’ illustri fratelli Il Sig.or Girolamo et il Sig. Michele Ruis … Di Roma, il di 25. di Agosto 1581” (a3v).
22. “Poema Antonii Ongari ad illustrem admodum adolescentem Petrum Ruis”; Manzoli, op. cit., pp.26-27.
23. Castelletti: “All’ illustre, e generoso Sig. Padron mio singolariss. Il Sig. Girolamo Ruis … Di Roma e di casa di V.S. à 15. di Gennaro. 1584” (A3v). Marenzio: “Al Molto Illustre et Generoso Signor Patron mio osservandissimo, il Signor Girolamo Ruis … Di Venetia il dì 5. di Maggio 1584” (A1v). Girolamo’s relations with Casteletti and Ongaro are discussed by Maria Cicala “Il circolo romano dei fratelli Ruis” in Spagna e Italia attraverso la letteratura del secondo Cinquecento: atti del colloquio internazionale, I.U.O.-Napoli, 21-23 ottobre 1999 (Naples 2001), pp.339-387.
24. Filippo’s post-mortem inventory in Archivio di Stato, Roma, Collegio Notai Capitolini, vol. 1427, atti Antonio Maria Rapa, cc.591-601, was located by Tosini, op. cit. 2008, pp.300, 364. Paintings in Filippo's collection are listed, and the inventory possibly refers to books.
25. The binding is illustrated by Emil Hirsch Antiquariat, Buch-Einbände: Literatur und alte Originale … Katalog (Munich [1897]), Pl. 3, and is cited by G.D. Hobson, op. cit., p.126 no. 19, associating it with the “Ruiz family”.
26. Hobson, op. cit., 1953, p.143 (“No Ruizi can be traced in Gams [Series episcoporum ecclesiae catholicae, Ratisbon 1873-1886] although a mitre surmounts the arms on an empty binding”). Hobson excluded it from his 1975 census.
(1) Luigi Alamanni, Opere toscane di Luigi Alamanni al christianissimo re Francesco primo (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe, 1532), bound with Luigi Alamanni, Opere toscane (Venice: Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio for Melchiorre Sessa, 1533)
(30) Francesco Maurolico, Martyrologium reueren. domini Francisci Maurolyci abbatis Messanensis multo quam antea purgatum, et locupletatum (Venice: Lucantonio II Giunta, 1568)