This binding covering a suite of twenty-six engravings illustrating the Greek myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece is decorated to an “architectural” design: a gold-tooled cornice, frieze, and architrave are supported by Ionic columns, which frame a tablet on which is placed the heraldic shield of Nicolas Dangu as abbé de Juilly, flanked by large cornucopias. On the stylobate (upper cover only) is another tablet, lettered with the motto “Ditat servata fides”. The design is enhanced by varicoloured onlays and red and blue-grey paint is used to pick out details. The composition seems intended to represent a palace portico or arcade, but there is little resemblance to any real structure, classical or contemporary, and no graphic model can be identified.

Bindings with architectural decoration are of great rarity. The style had evolved in North-east Italy during the 1470s, was revived in France in the mid-1540s by Jean Grolier,¹ and had faded by the mid-1570s. A census of bindings with this kind of ornament compiled in 1926 by G.D. Hobson lists just twelve examples, of which four were made ca 1545 by Jean Picard for Grolier, and one several years later by Picard’s successor, Gommar Estienne, for Grolier’s protégé, Thomas Mahieu.² The present binding and another (see Appendix below), covering a copy of the same book, are both recorded by G.D. Hobson, however their original owners have until now remained enigmatic. They are here identified as Nicolas Dangu (d. 1567) and Vincenzo Lauro (1523-1592).

Nicolas Dangu was the natural son of Antoine Duprat (1463-1535), chancellor of France and cardinal, and “demoiselle Dangu” (perhaps Louise de Ferrières, seigneuresse Dangu).³ Appointed in 1526 abbot of Notre-Dame de Juilly (Seine-et-Marne), Nicolas was named by François I in 1538 abbot of Saint-Savin-en-Lavedan, and in 1539 bishop of Sées (Orne), and in 1545, he became bishop of Mende (1545-1567) and comte de Gévaudan (a title devolved on the bishops of Mende). He also received from François I the title of Maître des requêtes de l’Hôtel du roi de France. In 1540, Nicolas was appointed Chancelier of Henri II d’Albret, sovereign of Navarre, and the King’s brother-in-law. He meanwhile became an intimate of Marguérite d’Angoulême, Queen of Navarre, and is often identified as one of the male narrators (Dagoucin) of her Heptameron. At an uncertain date, before 1547, Nicolas was granted the arms displayed on this binding: D’azur à la fasce d’or, chargée d’une fleur de lys de gueule, accompagnée de 3 molettes d’or 2 & 1.⁴

The motto “Ditat servata fides” (Loyalty preserved enriches) lettered on the upper cover is found also on the façade of a petit château built by Nicolas Dangu at Saint-Martin-d’Armagnac (close to Pau and Nérac, the two centres of the House of Navarre), carved in the lintel above the main entrance (l’an. ditat. servata. fides 1563),⁵ and written in a manuscript Book of Hours illustrated with miniatures of St. Martin which likely belonged to Nicolas Dangu.⁶ It is possible that the cornucopiae which flank the Dangu arms were inspired by Gabriele Simeoni’s woodcut emblem “Un fidele amico o servitore,” first published in 1559, which embodies the motto “Ditat servata fides”:

Gabriele Simeoni, Le Imprese heroiche et morali (Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1559), p.32 [link]

After the death of Henri II d’Albret (25 July 1555), Nicolas was maintained in his position by Jeanne d’Albret and Antoine de Bourbon, Queen and King of Navarre. He was marginalised after the latter’s death (17 November 1562), as the now publicly declared Protestant Queen could not keep a bishop at her court hostile to her religious projects. On 6 February 1563, Jeanne d’Albret despatched Nicolas to become administrator of the northern territories (Picardy, Flanders, Artois, Brabant, Hainaut) inherited by her children from their father. He is still listed among members of her household in 1564, but the increasing commitment of the Queen to the Protestant cause, and his own failing health, soon demanded retirement. In his final years, Nicolas occupied himself with the restoration of the abbey of Juilly, where he was buried in 1567.⁷

The promoter or publisher of the Hystoria Jasonis was Jehan de Mauregard, a clerk of the court (“Greffier des Prévosté et soubaillie de Poissy”) in the Île-de-France. In a dedicatory epistle to the young King Charles IX, Mauregard states that the prints were engraved after a set of drawings he had commissioned from the Flemish painter and designer Léonard Thiry, an artist in the Fontainebleau studios of Rosso Fiorentino and Primaticcio. The printmaker was René Boyvin, a specialist in engraving designs of the Fontainebleau artists. Captions for the prints were composed at Mauregard’s request by Jacques Gohory (1520-1576), and the suite was published simultaneously with the preliminary text and captions in French translation (the dedication is subscribed by Mauregard 3 July 1563, and the privilege dated 14 July 1563).

Mauregard’s motive in publishing this costly book is obscure. Multiple copies of the Latin and French issues were prepared for presentation, bound in different styles, most likely at the order or even under the supervision of Mauregard himself. No copies presented to the young sovereign, or to members of the Valois court, are identifiable today. However, two copies of the Hystoria Jasonis given to personages at the rival court of Navarre have survived: this one, presented to Nicolas Dangu, and another, also in an architectural binding, presented to Vincenzo Lauro (Lauri, Laureus; 1523-1592).

New York, Morgan Library & Museum, 15450

Born in Tropea, Calabria, Lauro studied medicine and theology at Naples and Padua, then served successively in Rome as private secretary and doctor to Cardinals Pietro Paolo Parisi and Nicola Gaddi, before in 1552 entering the service of the powerful Cardinal François de Tournon. Lauro developed close personal relationships at the French court and after the Cardinal’s death (21 April 1562), he became physician in ordinary to Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre.⁸ He is reputed to have been present during the King’s last illness, persuading him to confess and receive the holy viaticum (9 November 1562). Lauro was one of two doctors who rushed to attend the wounded François Duc de Guise (18 February 1563; died 24 February).⁹ He was also in service to Catherine de’ Medici, then acting as Regent for her young son, Charles IX. Lauro afterwards returned to Italy, became the physician of Duke Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, was elected bishop of Mondovì (1566), and created Cardinal (1583). In his testament, he left his library to the Collegio Romano.¹⁰

Detail from Morgan Library & Museum, 15450; insignia of Vincenzo Lauro (an uprooted laurel tree) after his promotion to Cardinal in 1583 (image sources [link], [link])

Lauro’s copy of the Hystoria Jasonis is bound in gold-tooled brown calf, with dark brown marbled goatskin onlays, and blue-grey paint, in the manner of Dangu’s copy. The design resembles a triumphal arch of three bays, formed by Ionic columns on pedestals, with a triangular pediment flanked by cornucopias. In the central bay on a red onlay is a shield bearing the Lauro arms, enclosed by a wreath with indistinct lettering.¹¹ Although the bindings for Dangu and Lauro are not twins, the existence of two copies of the same book in architectural bindings strongly suggests that both are presentation copies, produced in the same shop and at the same time. The identity of that shop remains unknown.

Some ten years later, a pair of architectural bindings were made for wedding of Henri III de Navarre and Marguérite de Valois (18 August 1572). The covers of one are decorated with a gold-tooled cornice, frieze, and architrave, supported by pairs of Ionic columns; in a cartouche between the columns is the initial “H”, and the same letter is incorporated in the frieze and stylobate.¹² The other is almost identical, but displays instead the cypher of Marguérite de Valois.¹³ Anthony Hobson suggested that these bindings were created in 1572 as albums covering blank paper, and subsequently were filled (respectively) with an “Explication cabalistique des psaumes de David” (in the 17th century?) and with the texts of discourses delivered in January-February 1576 at the Académie de Poésie et de Musique.¹⁴ Apart from the architectural elements, these two bindings have nothing in common with the bindings presented to Dangu and Lauro. They might reflect, however, a persisting taste for such architectural ornament at the Navarre court.

binding

Jacques Gohory, Hystoria Jasonis, Thessaliae principis, de Colchica velleris aurei expeditione, cum figuris aere excusis earumque expositione, versibus priscorum poetarum (Paris: [Jean de Mauregard], 1563)

provenance
● apparently bound for presentation to Nicolas Dangu (1526-1567), his arms on covers
● unidentified owner, Latin verse captions on the plates translated into French prose (an early hand)
● unidentified owner, inscription “De Noser” on title-page (washed)
● unidentified owner, copy “perfected” in 1810 by the printseller Naudet, marchand d’estampes au Louvre (his inscription on versos of seven plates; Frits Lugt, Les Marques de collections de dessins & d’estampes, online edition, no. 1937 [link])
● Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-1893)
● Maurice Delestre & Librairie Damascène Morgand, Catalogue de livres rares et précieux composant la bibliothèque de M. Hippolyte Destailleur, Paris, 13-25 April 1891, lot 1637 (“mar. citron, comp. de mosaïque de mar. noir, riches dorures, tr. dor. … Exemplaire recouvert d’une curieuse reliure du XVIIe siècle. Au centre d’un large portique, un écusson orné de deux grandes cornes d’abondance, porte les armes de Jean Loisier, abbé de Citeaux; ces armoiries sont surmontées de la crosse et de la mitre. Les colonnes à droite et à gauche du portique; l’écusson, la base et l’entablement sont ornés en mosaïque.” [link])
● Francis Greppe, Paris - bought in sale (FF 485)
● Maurice Delestre & Henri Leclerc with Paul Cornuau, Livres anciens composant la librairie de feu M. Francis Greppe, Paris, 31 March-5 April 1898, lot 167
● unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 340) [Pierre Dauze, Répertoire des ventes publiques cataloguées: Index bibliographique: 1er Octobre 1897 au 30 Septembre 1898 (Paris 1901), no. 25308; link]
● Louis Cartier (1875-1942); by succession to his daughter, Anne-Marie Cartier Revillon (1900-1968)
● Étienne Ader, Lucien Lefèvre & Claude Guérin, Livres précieux provenant de la bibliothèque Louis Cartier, Paris, 1-2 March 1962, lot 31 (“Cette suite a été placée dans une curieuse reliure du seizième siècle, ave portique aux armes de Jean Loysier, abbé de Citeaux”)
● unidentified owner - bought in sale (NF 3500)
● Michel Wittock (1936-2020)
● Christie Manson & Woods, The Michel Wittock collection. Part I, Important Renaissance bookbindings, London, 7 July 2004, lot 62 (“The arms on the Wittock copy have not been identified; the motto was used by Jean Loysier, abbot of Cîteaux (d.1559) and by ecclesiastics of the Briçonnet family, in-laws of Grolier” [link]) (realised £89,250) [RBH 6996-62]
● Purchased at the above sale [Bibliotheca Brookeriana #3154; to be offered by Sotheby’s in 2024-2025]

literature
Geoffrey Hobson, Maioli, Canevari and others (London 1926), p.34 no. VI (“The coat of arms was described in the [Destailleur] catalogue as that of Jean Loisier, Abbot of Citeaux: but this cannot be correct as Loisier died in 1559”)
Howard Nixon, Sixteenth-century gold-tooled bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York 1971), p.171
Société Royale des Bibliophiles et Iconophiles de Belgique, Reflets de la bibliophilie en Belgique III: Exposition à la Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier du 20 novembre au 18 décembre 1976 (Brussels 1976), no. 23 & Pl. 6
Paul Needham, Twelve centuries of bookbindings, 400-1600 (New York 1979), pp.244, 246
Cinq siècles d’ornements dans le décor extérieur du livre, 1515-1983, catalogue succinct des reliures exposées à l’occasion de l’inauguration de la Bibliotheca Wittockiana (Brussels 1983), no. 37
Paul Culot, “Présence d’un bibliophile” in L’Œil: Revue d’art mensuelle 348-349 (July-August 1984), pp.34-37 & Fig. 8
Anthony Hobson, Humanists and bookbinders: the origins and diffusion of the humanistic bookbinding 1459-1559 (Cambridge 1989), p.160
Anthony Hobson & Paul Culot, Italian and French 16th-century bookbindings [in the Bibliotheca Wittockiana] (Brussels 1991), no. 55 (arms unidentified; Jean Loisier rejected as a possibility)
Robert Harding, in The Wormsley Library: a personal selection by Sir Paul Getty, K.B.E. (London 1999), p.96

Appendix: a copy of Hystoria Jasonis (1563) bound for presentation to Vincenzo Lauro (1523-1592)

Jacques Gohory, Hystoria Jasonis, Thessaliae principis, de Colchica velleris aurei expeditione, cum figuris aere excusis earumque expositione, versibus priscorum poetarum (Paris: [Jean de Mauregard], 1563)

provenance
● apparently bound for presentation to Vincenzo Lauro (1523-1592), his arms on covers
● unidentified owner, inscription “Monsieur de Commieres m’a donné ce liure a (C—nillon ?) ce jourdhuy deuxiesme d’aoust mil six cents seze Lasalle” (Nixon)
● Édouard Rahir, Paris; sold in May 1907 to
● Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913)
● New York, Morgan Library & Museum, 15450 (opac, 16th-century French calf, gold tooled, painted and inlaid with brown morocco in an architectural design with the arms of Argent, an olive tree eradicated, with the motto “Flammas sica fiet” [link])

literature
Geoffrey Hobson, Maioli, Canevari and others (London 1926), p.34 no. VI
Geoffrey Hobson, Les reliures à la fanfare … Additions et corrections; Supplément à l’ouvrage “Les reliures à la fanfare” (Amsterdam 1970), pp.12-13 (“… l’un des rares exemples de reliures parisiennes en mosaïque datant des années 1560-1572: les branchages y sortent de vases de forme classique, de cornes d’abondance, et c’est là encore un procédé qui annonce la ‘fanfare’.”), p.133 & Pl. 6 (upper cover; as “Reliure parisienne, vers 1563”)
Dorothy Miner, The history of bookbinding, 525-1950 A.D. an exhibition held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, November 12, 1957, to January 12, 1958 (Baltimore 1957), no. 312 & Pl. LXVI (lower cover; as “France (Paris), about 1565-70”)
Howard Nixon, Sixteenth-century gold-tooled bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York 1971), pp.169-172 no. 43
Paul Needham, Twelve centuries of bookbindings 400-1600 (New York 1979), pp.244, 246
Federico Macchi, “Una legatura rinascimentale italiana del genere ‘architettonico’ alla Biblioteca Queriniana di Brescia” in Misinta 31 (2008), pp.27-36 (p.33 Fig. 7)