Federico Gentile was one of three sons of Michele Gentile (d. 1592) and Dianora Santacroce. His family had been established in Apulia since the twelfth century, where they reputedly held 87 fiefs, including those of Lesina, Civitate, Nardò, and Torremaggiore, of which they were counts.2 Federico married Dionara Montoya de Cardona, daughter of Juan Montoya de Cardona (d. 1621), a powerful Spanish judge, appointed in 1614 to the ministry for Italian affairs in Madrid, the Consejo de Italia.3 Federico’s interactions with five artists are documented: with the painter Geronimo Avitabile, in 1614;4 with the painters Louis Croys and François de Nomé, in 1614-1616;5 and with the sculptors Angelo Landi and Cosimo Fanzago, for the decoration of a new Cappella Gentile in Santa Maria Maggiore, Barletta, August 1619-November 1620.6 From a payment receipt dated 4 February 1621 relating to the Capella Gentile, we learn that Federico is deceased, and that his widow was completing that project on behalf of his heir Michele.
The escutcheon on the covers of these four bindings is seen on numerous bindings of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It and several other tools used on Federico Gentile’s bindings are associated with the workshop established by Francesco Soresino and continued by his heirs, Prospero and Baldassare, which from 1575 until the mid-1630s bound for the Vatican, as well as other clients. The twin mermaid tools, and a small, four-leaf flower tool, are repeated across the covers of a manuscript “Libro del Depositaria di Sedia Vacante di Papa Clemente Ottavo 1608”.7 The twin mermaid tools, the crowned-head tool, and star tool, appear on a “friendship binding” for Giuliano Fontana and Scipione Orlandini of about 1595.8 The Soresini possessed a substantial kit of tools, including copies of the tools in most frequent use. A variant of the crowned-head tool used on the Federico Gentle bindings appears on a volume bound in the Soresini shop for a member of the Della Torre family after 1602.9
1. For the heraldic insignia of other aristocratic families of the same name, flourishing in Aquila, Genoa, and Sicily, see Berardo Candida-Gonzaga, Memorie delle famiglie nobili delle province meridionali d’Italia (Naples 1878), IV, pp.79-87; Giovanni Battista di Crollalanza, Dizionario storico-blasonico delle famiglie nobili e notabili italiane (Pisa 1886), I, p.465.
2. According to the ledgerstone laid in Concattedrale di Santa Maria Maggiore, Barletta, in 1629, Michele was the “LX Comitibus Civitae, & Lesina”. Interred beside him were his widow, Dianora Santacroce, his sons Vincenzo, Federico, and Giovanni Donato, and Federico’s widow, Dianora Cardona; see Giovanni Battista d’Urso, Inscriptiones (Naples 1643), p.125 (transcribed; misdated 1624); Mimma Pasculli Ferrara, Arte napoletana in Puglia dal XVI al XVIII secolo (Fasano 1983), pp.157-161 (p.159, photograph). D’Urso transcribes (op. cit., p.8) another inscription “Supra domum Friderici Gentilis / Fridericus Gentilis / Gentilibus ab Normandis…” without indicating where the house is situated.
3. Francesco Zazzera, Della nobiltà dell’Italia, Parte seconda (Naples 1628), q.v. Gentile; Carlo de Lellis, Discorsi delle famiglie nobili del Regno di Napoli, Parte seconda (Naples 1663), II, p.212.
4. Eduardo Nappi, “Catalogo delle pubblicazioni edite dal 1883 al 1990, riguardanti le opere di architetti, pittori, scultori, marmorari ed intagliatori per i secoli XVI e XVII, pagate tramite gli antichi banchi pubblici napoletani” in Ricerche sul ‘600 napoletano (1992), p.48.
5. Three entries in the registers of the Banco di Sant’Eligio and Banco de Santa Maria del Popolo are transcribed by Eduardo Nappi, “I documenti” in Monsù Desiderio: i documenti sui pittori fiamminghi e lorenesi a Napoli tra Cinquecento e Seicento (Naples [2004]), p.43 nos. 51-52 and p.47 no. 74.
6. Pasculli Ferrara, op. cit., p. 308; Vincenzo Rizzo, “Maestri pipernieri, stuccatori e marmorari del seicento napoletano da documenti inediti dell’Archivio Storico del Banco di Napoli” in Ricerche sul ‘600 napoletano: saggi vari in memoria di Raffaello Causa (Milan 1984), pp.188, 194; Mimma Pasculli Ferrara, “Evoluzione della tipologia dell’altare da Fanzago a Sanmartino” in Cosimo Fanzago e il marmo commesso fra Abruzzo e Campania nell’età barocca (L’Aquila 1995), pp.35-41.
7. Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale I, Reg. 1857; reproduced by Guido Vianini Tolomei, “I ferri e le botteghe di legatori” in Legatura romana barocco 1565-1700 (Rome 1991), pp.31-44 & Tav. I (“sirena con coda arricciolata”) and p.81 no. 17 & colour plate.
8. On Claudianus, Opera (Lyon: Antoine Gryphe, 1589); offered by Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of the extensive and valuable library, the property of the late Michael Tomkinson, London, 3-7 July 1922, lot 1284.
9. On Dionysius Carthusianus, De Quatuor Hominis Novissimis, Nempè. I. Morte. II. Iudicio. III. Inferni poenis. IIII. Gaudiis coeli (Cologne: Bernhard Walter, 1602), in Bibliotheca Brookeriana (#2424), to be offered by Sotheby’s in 2024-2025.
(1) Gaius Julius Caesar, Rerum ab se gestarum Commentarii (Lyon: Antoine de Harsy, 1603)
provenance
● Federico Gentile (d. ca 1620), armorial supralibros, name lettered in capitals at top and bottom
● Louis-Alexandre Barbet (1850-1931)
● Maurice Ader, Henri Baudoin & Librairie Giraud Badin, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de feu M. L.-A. Barbet, Deuxième partie, Paris, 7-10 November 1932, lot 520 (“in-16, carte, mar. rouge, dos orné, plats couverts de chimères et de comp., tr. dor. et ciselées … Reliure italienne de l’époque aux armes et portant le nom de Federico Gentili [sic]”)
● unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 200)
● Federico Gentili Di Giuseppe (1868-1940) (?) [see no. 3 below]
● Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, GEN *OLC C116 603 (opac Full red morocco, gilt, with the name and armorial device of Federico Gentile stamped in gilt on covers; gauffered edges)
(2) Quintus Curtius Rufus, De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni Macedonum regis historiae. Aucta nunc ac locupletata (Lyon: Jean de Tournes for Antoine Gryphe, 1582)