Four bindings are known with the coat-of-arms of the Gentile di Lesina family (Di rosso al leone metà di oro e metà di verde) stamped in an escutcheon in the centres of both covers, and the name “Federico Gentile” lettered in capitals along the top and bottom.¹ They cover Paolo Manuzio’s edition of the Apothegmata collected by Erasmus (Venice 1583) and editions of Gaius Julius Caesar, Quintus Curtius Rufus, and Gaius Sallustius Crispus, in the original language, printed between 1582 and 1603, by or for Lyonese publishers. All four books are in sextodecimo format, and it could be that they once formed part of a travelling library.

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

bindings for federico gentile

(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)

provenance
● Federico Gentile (d. ca 1620), armorial supralibros, name lettered in capitals at top and bottom
● Joseph Baer & Co., Frankfurt am Main; their Frankfurter Bücherfreund. Mitteilungen aus dem Antiquariate von Joseph Baer & Co. Hervorragende Bucheinbände des XIV. bis XX. Jahrhunderts (13 Jahrgang, 1919-1920; Neue folge Nr. II, Heft 2/3), item 1103 & Pl. 138 (“Vendu”)
● “Dr Schuarte” [“A small collection of decorative bindings”, offered by Sotheby’s as “The property of Dr Schuarte”, lots 155a-155s, 17 volumes]
● Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of fine illuminated & other manuscripts, early classical texts, valuable printed books, autograph letters and historical documents, London, 16-20 December 1929, lot 155k
● Prideaux - bought in sale (£5)
● Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of valuable printed books, London, 30 July-2 August 1951, lot 468 (“contemporary red morocco gilt, a Roman binding, arms in centre, spiral ornaments at corners and four stamps of a winged female figure with foliated tail, owner’s name: Federico Gentile, impressed at head and foot of each side, gilt and gauffered edges”) [RBH ASH-468]
● Maggs Bros, London - bought in sale (£5)
● Jean Fürstenberg (1890-1982)
● “Exposé au Musée d’Art Geneve Mai 1966” (exhibition label, reported by Christie’s; but not in Musée d’art et d’histoire, Collection Jean Furstenberg: [exposition] 3 mai-5 juin 1966 (Geneva 1966)]
● Martin Breslauer Inc., Catalogue 107: Italy: Part II: Books printed 1501 to c. 1840 (New York [1984]), item 95 ($2300)
● Christie Manson & Woods, Valuable Continental books and fine bindings, mainly Italian, London, 3 April 1996, lot 79 (“unidentified 17th-century stamp on title”; “an early binding from the workshop of Prospero and Francesco Soresini”)
● unidentified owner - bought in sale (£1200)
● Martin Breslauer, Inc., Catalogue 110: Fine books and manuscripts in fine bindings from the fifteenth to the present century (New York 1992), item 68 ($5900; “title added to the compartments in the eighteenth century … among the earliest bindings from the Soresini workshop”)


(3) Paolo Manuzio, Apophthegmatum ex optimis vtriusque linguae scriptoribus libri IIX Paulli Manutii studio, atque industria, doctissimorum theologorum consilio, atque ope, ab omnibus mendis vindicati, quae pium, et veritatis catholicae studiosum lectorem poterant offendere (Venice: Damiano Zenaro, 1583)

provenance
● Federico Gentile (d. ca 1620), armorial supralibros, name lettered in capitals at top and bottom
● “Ruys” [identified as the consignor to Frederik Muller, by Jeanne Blogie, Répertoire des catalogues de ventes de livres imprimés, 4: Catalogues néerlandais appartenant à la Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier (Brussels 1992), col. 158]
● Frederik Muller & Co., Vente de livres et de manuscrits, 15-20 Mai 1911 … Supplément. Livres illustrés, manuscrits, reliures. Collection R*** de Bruxelles, Amsterdam, lot 3216 (lots 3214-3255 offered as “Collection R*** de Bruxelles”; “Reliure italienne du XVIe siècle en maroquin rouge, les plats entièrement couverts d’une jolie composition d’arabesques et de fers spéciaux, armoiries au centre, dos orné, tranches antiquées, in-16. … Sur le plats, on voit le nom du premier possesseur, imprimé en or: Federico Gentile”) [Delpher database, link]
● Federico Gentili Di Giuseppe (1868-1940)
● Adriana Raphaël (née Gentili di Giuseppe) Salem (1903-1976), pink circular exlibris “a.r.s.”
● Houghton Library, Harvard University [Gentili di Giuseppe collection of “over a thousand volumes” deposited ca 1939-1945 by Adriana Salem; Catalogue of the fifteenth-century printed books in the Harvard University Library (1991-1997), V, p.43, reprinting James E. Walsh, “Forming Harvard’s collection of incunabula” in Harvard Library Bulletin 8 (1997), pp.1-74 (pp.42-43)]
● Ward Murphy Canaday (1902-1991) (?) [purchased the Gentili di Giuseppe collection from Adriana Salem, in 1955, and “gradually transferred ownership to Harvard over the next ten years” (Walsh); offered at Sotheby’s in 1977 as “The Property of a Gentleman (formerly in the Gentili di Giuseppe Collection)”, lots 38-52]
● Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., Catalogue of valuable printed books, London, 16 May 1977, lot 45 (“contemporary Roman red morocco … arms of the Gentile (Gentili) family”)
● Patrick King Rare Books, Stony Stratford - bought in sale (£185)
● Maggs Bros, London; their Catalogue 986: Ancient medieval and modern, No. 17: Italy (London 1978), item 185 and Pl. 1 (£325; “dark red morocco gilt for Federico Gentile. The sides tooled with a design having in centre the owner’s arms within a cartouche, surrounded by four winged mermaids and two small crowned heads with rays; above and below is a canopy ornament, and in the corners, a coiled stem; frame with names of the owner at top and bottom and leaf ornament at the sides. Spine with three raised bands: the top compartment has title and author in bold letters, and the other three have ornamental ovals. Gilt edges decorated with diaper pattern. Ties missing.”) [RBH 986-185]
● E.P. Goldschmidt & Co., London [stockbook #42977: bought from Maggs June 1978, sold to Brooker April 1979]
● T. Kimball Brooker (purchased from the above, 1979) [Bibliotheca Brookeriana ID #2394]
● Sotheby’s, Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library. Magnificent Books and Bindings, New York, 11 October 2023, lot 61 [link]
● unidentified owner - bought in sale ($7620)


(4) Gaius Sallustius Crispus, C. Sallvstii Crispi Coniuratio Catilinae. Bellum Iugurthinum, Historiarum libri Porcii Latronis declamatio in Catilinam. Adversariæ Sallustij et Ciceronis: Cum scholijs et emendationibus Aldi Manutij, Cypr. à Popma, et Lud. Carrionis ([Geneva:] Jacob Stoer) [for Paul Frellon & Abraham Cloquemin of Lyon], 1601)

provenance
● Federico Gentile (d. ca 1620), armorial supralibros, name lettered in capitals at top and bottom
● Ludwig Rosenthal’s Antiquariat, Munich (?) [sale below a disposal of Rosenthal stock]
● Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, Catalogue of rare and valuable printed books and illuminated & other manuscripts, London 13-15 November 1902, lot 511 (“old Italian morocco, with rich gilt renaissance ornaments, and name and arms of Federico Gentile, gilt and gauffered edges, roughly repaired”)
● Swann - bought in sale (£2 2s)
● Ernst Weiser [preface of Hirsch sale catalogue explicit that all 257 bindings in the sale are Weiser’s property]
● Antiquariat Emil Hirsch, Sammlung Ernst Weiser: schöne und kostbare Bucheinbände, französische Kupferwerke des XVIII. Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1 December 1924, lot 107 & Pl. 12 (“Roter Maroquinband … im Rand der Name des Federico Gentile … Hübscher neapolitan. Einband” [link])