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A Venetian binding for Conte Fulvio Rangoni, ca 1550
Fulvio Rangoni (Rangone) was born in 1535 or 1536, the first child of the condottiero Claudio Rangoni (1507-1537), Conte di Castelcrescente, and Lucrezia Pico Rangoni (1505-1550).1 At a tender age, he was placed by his mother with a succession of tutors, initially Jacopino de’ Bianchi, detto de’ Lancellotti, son of the Modonese diarist Tommasino de’ Bianchi (appointed on 10 September 1540), then with the heterodox priest Girolamo Serafino Teggia di Sassuolo, and following Teggia’s death, in 1548, with the young humanist scholar Carlo Sigonio. Sigonio had returned home to Modena in 1545, and in January 1546 was appointed public lecturer in Greek. At the time he took on the role of precettore, he was lecturing also on history, poetry and rhetoric (the studia humanitatis), and preparing his first publication.2 The literary critic and teacher of law Lodovico Castelvetro also was involved in Fulvio’s education. On 23 December 1548, he lent to Fulvio a copy of Petrarch,3 and over the next month, three more volumes: Charles Estienne’s versions of the schoolbooks of Lazare de Baïf,4 Stobaeus’s collection of valuable and instructive sayings culled from earlier Greek writers (in Greek),5 and an Aldine edition of the Latin grammatical work of Marcus Terentius Varro.6 Castelvetro’s house in Modena was the meeting place of Modonese intellectuals, and at a gathering held there during the summer of 1549, Castelvetro is said to have doted on his young pupil.7 After two years, Sigonio was replaced as tutor by Sebastiano Fausto da Longiano. Fulvio’s studies soon afterwards were brought to a halt: on 18 March 1552, he travelled to Milan, and married a maternal cousin, Paola Trivulzio, daughter of Gianfrancesco Trivulzio.
Binding for Conte Fulvio Rangoni (Bibliotheca Brookeriana)
Binding for Contessa Claudia Rangoni (Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, HBF 1035)
Image courtesy of Wolfgang J. Kaiser
Claudia Rangoni was born in 1536 or 1537.8 She was christened Olimpia; however, after her father’s premature death (11 February 1537), given the name Claudia. It could be that Claudia shared the tuition provided for her brother, for there is evidence of a cultivated mind. Dionigi Atanagi, Annibal Caro, Luca Contile, Rinaldo Corso, Vincenzo Martelli, Girolamo Ruscelli, and Torquato Tasso, are among the letterati who lauded her in print, commending her spoken and written eloquence, and beauty, comparing her with Veronica Gambara, Irene da Spilimbergo, the Marchesa di Pescara, Vittoria Colonna, and Vittoria Colonna D’Aragona. In May 1550, aged thirteen, Claudia was married to Giberto da Correggio. The lettering on the binding (Contessa Claudia Rangona) suggests that the book was received sometime before her marriage. Both bindings may have been commissioned by Fulvio, mementos of a visit he made to Venice; or they possibly were gifts, perhaps from Sigonio or Castelvetro, who made several excursions together to Padua and Venice, their last during the spring of 1552, when Sigonio was appointed lecturer in the Scuola di San Marco.
In 1960, Tammaro De Marinis published Fulvio’s copy among anonymous “legature veneziane,” affording it a full-page plate.9 Ilse Schunke in 1964 assigned the binding to a shop she called “Der Wanderbuchbinder,” on the assumption that its proprietor was an itinerant, university binder, who arrived in Venice circa 1535.10 Schunke associated 33 bindings with this master (later adding a 34th),11 which she organized in six categories, two comprised exclusively of commissioni dogali (completed from 1537-1554), and the others of printed books and manuscripts grouped according to style or date: “Linien” (ruled frames), “Plaketten” (medallion, or plaquette ornament), “Prachteinbände” (richly gilt, deluxe), and “Spätwerke” (executed ca 1550 to 1554). Fulvio’s Rangoni’s copy of Bembo was placed in the group of five “Prachteinbände.”
Anthony Hobson’s exploration of the intertwining relationships between Venetian printers, booksellers, and binders revealed to him that Schunke’s “Der Wanderbuchbinder” was ill-named. The binder was no wanderer, but established in Venice for his entire working life, from about 1518/1520 until perhaps 1555. In 1999, Hobson provisionally renamed him the “Mendoza Binder” on account of the numerous bindings he carried out for Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, imperial ambassador to Venice from 1539 to 1546, and speculated that he might be Andrea di Lorenzo (ser Andreas quondam Laurentii), a bookbinder and native of Verona residing in the parish of San Fantin. Hobson compiled a list of the Mendoza Binder’s surviving work, which extends to 364 bindings.12
According to our analysis, Hobson absorbed into his list of the Mendoza Binder’s production twenty-one of the bindings attributed by Schunke to the Wanderbuchbinder, and rejected thirteen bindings. Four of the deluxe “Prachteinbände” are among those thirteen bindings; one of them is Fulvio Rangoni’s Bembo.13 Since Hobson makes no reference in his book to the excluded bindings, we have no insight into his reasoning, nor alternative attributions.
the retirement of the mendoza binder: new workshops producing fine bindings
In the last years of his activity, the Mendoza Binder was receiving commissions from scribes in the Hebrew and Greek communities in Venice, and from collectors associated with them, notably Johann Jakob Fugger and Francesco Barocci. Hobson listed seven bindings he made for Fugger covering Hebrew codices14 and twenty-four bindings covering Greek codices.15 All these manuscripts were written for Fugger in the years ca 1549-1552 and were bound with minimal decoration to similar patterns: the covers panelled by blind and gilt rules, enclosing an “undulating lozenge” - Hobson’s term for an innovation of the Mendoza Binder of the late 1530s - and, within it, a double-circle centrepiece containing lettering; a knotwork, leaf, or lozenge tool is used sparingly. Hobson associated with the Mendoza Binder seven bindings for Francesco Barocci, all on Greek codices, and executed in 1553.16 These bindings are even more austere in their decoration, being uniformly tooled in gold, with blind lines, to a panel design, with a leaf ornament at the outer angles, and a title lettered in gilt on the upper cover.
The Mendoza Binder continued to bind legal documents issued by the Doge when appointing members of the Venetian oligarchy to governmental offices. Hobson records twenty bindings on commissioni dogali executed by the Mendoza Binder between 1550 and 1556 (three more are added by Laura Nuvoloni).17 Hobson found that the Mendoza Binder had settled in the 1540s on a new stock pattern for commissioni bindings, and that “this pattern remained unchanged until the end of the series”, with few “substantial variations”.18 Judging from available illustrations, this design featured a broad gilt arabesque border, with fleurons at its outer and inner corners, a star in the centres formed by two interlacing squares of double fillets, containing the recipient’s name, accompanied by small stars, with a fleuron above and below.19 The experimentation and stylistic innovation which formerly characterised the Mendoza Binder’s work is no longer apparent.
The styles introduced by the Mendoza Binder were soon taken up by local competitors and imitations of his “undulating lozenge” and other schemes of decoration appear in the productions of binders named by Hobson as the “Fugger Binder,” “Cicero Binder,” “Agnese Binder,” and “Emblematic Binder.” With the exception of the “Cicero Binder”, each of these workshops undertook commissions for deluxe bindings with elaborate patterns, covering commissioni manuscripts or books intended for presentation. Thanks to Hobson, the tools employed by these masters have become familiar. The binding covering Fulvio Rangoni’s copy of Bembo Lettere cannot be attributed to any of these shops, nor can three other “Prachteinbände” in Schunke’s list of the Wanderbuchbinder’s production. Some bindings may, however, be linked with each other, and we present below a few observations to assist future identification of their anonymous makers.
Binding for Procurator Giovanni da Legge (location unknown)
The first of the “Prachteinbände” (Schunke [no. 23]) is the apparent dedication copy to Giovanni da Legge, Procuratore di San Marco, of Leonardo Gabrielli’s Noua Spagna d’amor, et morte dei paladini (Venice: Pietro & Giovanni Maria Nicolini da Sabbio, 1550).20 In the centre of its covers is an undulating lozenge and within it a centrepiece ornament of interlocking squares; the border is filled by flame tools. The cornerpieces on the Gabrielli seem identical to those on Fulvio Rangoni’s copy of Bembo (Schunke [no.24]), which also features a border filled by flame tools and display of four stars at the interstices. Above and below the centrepiece on Fulvio’s Bembo is a rhombus-shaped tool which appears on the bindings of commissioni issued to Lorenzo Tiepolo in 1551 and to Pietro Sanudo in 1556.21
Left and Centre Cornerpieces on Fulvio’s Bembo and on Gabrielli. Right Details from Commissioni of 1551 (top) and 1556 (bottom)
Portolan atlas by Battista Agnese (London, Royal Geographical Society, Map Room, CA15B-001)
The binding on a portolan atlas drawn about 1550-1552 by the cartographer Battista Agnese (Schunke [no. 25]) has the undulating lozenge and a border incorporating flame tools, however none of its tools appear on the two volumes bound for the Rangoni, nor do we observe them on the published work of the Mendoza Binder and Agnese Binder.22 Schunke’s next binding ([no. 26]) is the one binding of the “Prachteinbände” group which Hobson accepts into his census of the Mendoza Binder’s production, and with good reason. It displays a frame composed of a tool associated by Hobson with the Mendoza Binder’s earliest bindings, a centre ornament of type the Mendoza Binder created in the mid-1540s, and a distinctive tool in the border apparently identical to the one he used on the earliest of his “undulating lozenge” bindings (1537).23 The last of the five bindings (Schunke [no. 27]) covers a Protestant Bible of 1547 and is known only by a rubbing (the book was lost 1939-1945).24 It too features an undulating lozenge; the corner pieces appear to be those used on Fulvio Rangoni’s copy of Bembo, and its border has a similar pattern of stars at the interstices.
The decorative features of an undulating lozenge and centre ornament of interlocked squares are seen also on Claudia’s copy of Bembo. The arabesque cornerpieces and the addorsed fleurons in the frame appear to be identical to those found on a copy of Il Petrarca (Venice: Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari & Brothers, 1550) bound perhaps for Ettore Podocataro with the motto “Qvod sors coniunxit | Amor ligavit” on its covers (Bibliotheca Brookeriana 2239).
Left Cornerpieces on Claudia Rangoni’s Bembo. Right Cornerpieces on a binding for Ettore Podocataro
1. Girolamo Tiraboschi, Biblioteca modenese, o, Notizie della vita e delle opere degli scrittori natii degli stati del serenissimo signor duca di Modena (Modena 1783), IV, pp.288-292 [link]. Matteo Al Kalak, “Rangoni (Rangone), Fulvio” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 86 (2016), pp.403-406 [link].
2. Demosthenis Oratio prima contra Philippum (Modena: Antonio Gadaldini, 1549). William McCuaig, Carlo Sigonio: the Changing world of the late Renaissance (Princeton 1989), pp.6-7.
3. Andrea Barbieri, “Castelvetro, i suoi libri e l’ambiente culturale modenese del suo tempo” in Lodovico Castelvetro: filologia e ascesi (Rome 2007), pp.57-72 (p.70: “Adi detto: al conte Fulvio Rangone l’Alunno sopra il Petr[arca]. (Restitui).” The specific copy is identified by Barbieri as Francesco Petrarca, Il Petrarca con le osseruationi di messer Francesco Alunno (Venice: Francesco Marcolini, October 1539), in Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, A 057 F 027 (opac, [link]).
4. Barbieri, op. cit., p.70: “1549, a 1 di genaio: al conte Fulvio Lazzaro Baifio. (Restituì).” The copy is identified by Barbieri as L. de Baïf, De re navali libellus in adolescentulorum bonarum artium studiosorum favorem ex Baifii vigiliis excerptus (Lyon: Sébastien Gryphe, 1540), bound with Baïf’s De re vestiaria libellus, ex Bayfio excerptus: addita uulgaris linguae interpretatione, in adolescentulorum gratiam atque utilitatem (Troyes: Nicolas Paris, 1542), in Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, E 031 A 015 003 (opac, [link]).
5. Barbieri, op. cit., p.71: “Al conte Fulvio Strobeo [sic] greco. (Restituì).” The copy is identified by Barbieri as Johannes Stobaeus, Ioannou tou Stobaiou Eklogai apophthegmaton. Ioannis Stobaei Collectiones sententiarum (Venice: Giovanni Francesco Trincavelli for Bartolomeo Zanetti, February 1535), in Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, V AN 014 012 (opac, [link]).
6. Barbieri, op. cit., p.71: “Al conte Fulvio Varrone d’Aldo. (Restituì).” The copy is not identified by Barbieri.
7. The occasion is recorded by Lazzaro Fenucci, Ragionamenti sopra alcune osseruationi della lingua volgare (Bologna 1551), p.15 [link]. For the dating of this meeting, see Alberto Roncaccia, Il metodo critico di Ludovico Castelvetro (Rome 2006), pp.33-81.
8. Tiraboschi, op. cit., pp.260-277.
9. Tammaro De Marinis, La Legatura artistica in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI (Florence 1960), no. 2220 & Pl. C50.
10. Ilse Schunke, “Venezianische Renaissanceeinbände” in Studi di Bibliografia e di Storia in onore di Tammaro De Marinis (Verona 1963), pp.123–200 (pp.166, 169). The earliest binding in Schunke’s list is a copy of 1527 Aldine Virgilius, dated 1535 on its binding, now Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, 170, 169 S-30 (opac, [link]).
11. Ilse Schunke, “Foreign bookbindings, V: Italian Renaissance bookbindings: ii. Venice c. 1560” in The Book Collector 19 (Spring, 1970), pp.66-67 (image, [link]). Schunke does not identifier the owner whose insignia is placed within the roundel on the upper cover (“the espaliered tree on this may belong to a member of the Rovere family”). The book is the 1559 Paolo Manuzio edition of Cicero, De Officiis, now Leipzig, Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum, Bö M 291/8° (opac, [link]).
12. Anthony Hobson, Renaissance book collecting: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, their books and bindings (New York 1999), pp.244-250 (Appendix 5: Bindings by the Mendoza Binder).
13. Schunke, op. cit., pp.168-169. The bindings in Schunke’s list are not enumerated (nos. are provided here for clarity; H = Hobson, op. cit., Appendix 5, no.). Linien: 1. H142; 2. H134; 3. H131; 5. H312; 6. H240; 7. H58 (nos. 4, 8-9 not traced in Hobson). Commissionseinbände, 1: (nos. 10-13 not traced in Hobson). Plaketten: 14. H217; 15. H144; 16. H213; 17. H218; 18. H p.152 no. 182. Commissionseinbände, 2: 19. H26; 20. H52; 22. H60 (no. 21 not traced in Hobson). Prachteinbände: 26. H.130 (nos. 23-25, 27 not traced in Hobson). Spätwerke: 28. H145; 29. H146; 30. H249; 31. H229; 32. H61; 33. H243. Schunke’s 34th binding published in 1970 (see note 10 above) is dismissed by Hobson, op. cit., p.97.
14. Hobson, op. cit., Appendix 5, nos. 358-364. These are Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codices hebraici (links to images of bindings, when available), nos. 11, 17, 22, 24 (image, [link]), 40, 52, 54 (image, [link]). Fugger commissioned altogether 55 Hebrew codices (containing approximately 270 individual treatises), each of about 400 pages and bound in green goatskin. On his project, see Ilona Steinmann, “Jewish Scribes and Christian Patrons: The Hebraica Collection of Johann Jakob Fugger” in Renaissance Quarterly 70 (2017), pp.1235-1281.
15. Hobson, op. cit., Appendix 5, nos. 312-335. These are Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codices graeci (links to images of bindings, when available), nos. 7, 11, 19, 20 (image, [link]), 21 (image, [link]), 24, 28, 30 (image, link]), 39 (image, [link]), 46 (image, [link]), 52 (image, [link]), 55 (image, [link]), 56 (image, [link]), 57 (image, [link]), 61 (image, [link]), 86 (image, [link]), 87 (image, [link]), 95 (image, [link]), 114 (image, [link]), 118 (image, [link]), 119 (image, [link]), 127 (image, [link]), 146, 208. The bindings all appear to be russet goatskin. See Kerstin Hajdú, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München, Bd. 10/1: Die Sammlung griechischer Handschriften in der Münchener Hofbibliothek bis zum Jahr 1803 (Munich 2002), pp.53-55.
16. Hobson, op. cit., p.108 and Appendix 5, nos. 305-311 & Fig. 59 (no. 309). These are Oxford, Bodleian Library, Mss Barocci, nos. 7 (image of binding, [link]), 62 (image, [link]), 67 (image, [link]), 68 (image, [link]), 103 (image, [link]), 104 (image, [link]), 154 (image, [link]). See Federica Ciccolella, “Greek in Venetian Crete: Grammars and schoolbooks from the library of Francesco Barocci” in Teachers, Students, and Schools of Greek in the Renaissance (Leiden & Boston 2017), pp.371-393.
17. Hobson, op. cit., Appendix 5, nos. 43-62. Laura Nuvoloni, “Commissioni Dogali: Venetian bookbindings in the British Library” in For the love of the binding: studies in bookbinding history presented to Mirjam Foot (London & New Castle, DE 2000), pp.81-109 (pp.89, 93). Her additions to Hobson’s census are BL, Add. Ms 17347 (dated 1550; image, [link]); Harley Ms 3395 (dated 1551; image, [link]); Add Ms 22338 (dated 1555).
18. Hobson, op. cit., p.101. “Variations” include no. 58, with the painted Venier arms (description, [link]; image, [link]); and no. 61, a commissione to Girolamo Michiel, 1554 (image, [link]; Henry Benjamin Wheatley, Remarkable Bindings in the British Museum (London & Paris 1889), Pl. 14 [link]; Nuvoloni, op. cit., p.82 Pl. 4.
19. Bindings following this pattern include Hobson no. 47 [link], 51 (image, [link]), 53 [link], 54 (image, [link]), 62 (image, [link]); Nuvoloni, op. cit., p.89: BL, Add. Ms 17347 (image, [link]).
20. Leonardo Gabrielli, Noua Spagna d’amor, et morte dei paladini: nouamente composta (Venice: Pietro & Giovanni Maria Nicolini da Sabbio, 1550) ● Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919) ● Libreria De Marinis, Florence (Mostra Storica della Legatura Artistica in Palazzo Pitti, Florence 1922, no. 161) ● Libreria antiquaria Ulrico Hoepli, Vendita all’asta della preziosa collezione proveniente dalla cessata Libreria de Marinis; Prima parte, Milan, 6-9 May 1925, lot 129 & Pl. 19 ● Martin Breslauer, Inc., Catalogue one hundred and nine (New York 1988), item 66 (“no doubt the presentation copy to the dedicatee, Giovanni da Legge, Procurator of San Marco, printed on fine heavy paper, and in an outstanding binding by one of the foremost Venetian ateliers”).
21. “Commissione per Lorenzo Tiepolo capitano a Verona, 1551” (Padua, Biblioteca civica, CM 568); De Marinis, op. cit. no. 1864 & Pl. 350A (image, [link]). Commissione of Doge Lorenzo Priuli to Pietro Sanudo, appointed Luogotenente di Udine, 1556 (Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, ms. Classe III 300). The binding was published by G.D. Hobson, Maioli, Canevari and others (Boston 1926), p.18 (note 4) & Pl. 25 (image, [link]); Hobson, op. cit., p.259 no. 121, credits it to the Fugger Binder. Compare the entry by Daria Donà and Francesco Bernardi, as a work of the Mendoza Binder [link].
22. Manuscript portolan atlas by, or from the office of, Battista Agnese, ca 1550-1552 ● Joseph Brown Yates, bought in Rome in 1826 ● Henry Yates Thompson (1838-1928; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Second Series of Fifty Manuscripts (nos. 51 to 100) in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson, Cambridge 1902, no. 96; Illustrations from one hundred Manuscripts in the Library of Henry Yates Thompson [Third series], Consisting of sixty-nine plates illustrating ten MSS. of various countries from the IXth to the XVIth centuries, London 1912, Pls. 61-69) ● Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, Catalogue of twenty-eight illuminated manuscripts and two illuminated printed books, the Property of Henry Yates Thompson, London, 3 June 1919, London, lot 28 & Pls. 38-39 (“Binding: Venetian, Cent. XVI, olive-green morocco, gracefully tooled, and with four silver clasps … Of the many Portulani which I have seen, this is the most luxuriously bound. The coat of arms of the owner and his wife are not on the binding, but occur on folio 2.” [link]) [“bought in by the owner for twelve hundred pounds,” Wagner, op. cit., p.89] ● London, Royal Geographical Society, Map Room, CA15B-001 [link]. Henry R. Wagner, “The Manuscript atlases of Battista Agnese” in PBSA 25 (1931), pp.1-110 (pp.88-89 no. 51). G.R. Crone, “A Manuscript atlas by Battista Agnese in the Society’s Collection” in Geographical Journal 108 (1946), pp.72-80 (p.74: “contemporary Venetian binding of tooled olive-green morocco, with four silver clasps (26.3 x 18 cms.)”). De Marinis, op. cit., no. 2221 & Pl. C50B.
23. Breviarium per totum anni circulum secundum ritum et ordinem monialium sancti Laurentij de Venetijs (Venice: Antonio Zanchi, 22 March 1497). ● Vicenza, Biblioteca Civica Bertoliana, Inc., G.3.4.30. De Marinis, op. cit., no. 2262 & Pl. 51B (image, [link]). Hobson, op. cit., p.247 no. 130; compare Hobson’s Figs. 57 (border), 58 (centrepiece), 60, 68 (tool).
24. Luther, [Bible] ● Cologne, Prediger-Seminar (lost 1939-1945). Schunke, op. cit. 1964, IV, p.166 & Pl. 14 (image, [link]).
bound for fulvio ragoni
Pietro Bembo, Delle lettere di m. Pietro Bembo primo volume (Rome: Valerio & Luigi Dorico for Carlo Gualteruzzi, September 1548)
provenance
● Fulvio Rangone, supralibros, lettered “C[onte] Fulvio Rangone” on lower cover
● Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919)
● Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, Catalogue of a further portion of the valuable library collected by the late Charles Fairfax Murray, Esq., of London and Florence, London, 17-20 July 1922, lot 88 (“contemporary Italian binding, dark red morocco, geometrical line tooling in gold on sides enclosing a centre panel, the corners of the panel decorated with arabesques stamped in relief against a gold ground, in the centre an ornamental line frame enclosing a double circle with lettering on the upper cover, ‘Card. Bembo’ and on the lower ‘Co. Fulvio Rangone,’ diagonal line tooling on back, two corners neatly mended, top of back and bottom of lower cover also neatly restored” [link]) [RBH Jul171922-88]
● Leo S. Olschki, Florence - bought in sale (£21) [Book Prices Current, 36, p.70; link]
● Leo S. Olschki, Lucignano, 1975
● T. Kimball Brooker (purchased from the above, 1975) [Bibliotheca Brookeriana #2210; to be offered by Sotheby’s in 2024-2025
literature
A list of printed books in the library of Charles Fairfax Murray ([London?] 1907), p.22 (“orig. red mor., richly gold tooled, with Card. Bembo and C. Fulvio Ragone [sic!] in the centre of the respective sides” [link])
G.D. Hobson, Maioli, Canevari and others (Boston 1926), p.18 (note 4)
Bibliothèque nationale et Musée des arts décoratif, Exposition du livre italien, mai-juin 1926: catalogue des manuscrits, livres imprimés, reliures (Paris 1926), no. 955 (“Maroquin rouge, plats ornés et dorés; sur le premier plat le nom de l’auteur, sur l’autre le nom C. Fulvio Rangone. A M. Leo S. Olschki, Florence” [link])
Tammaro De Marinis, La Legatura artistica in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI (Florence 1960), no. 2220 & Pl. C50 (“Firenze, Libreria L.S. Olschki (1930)”)
Ilse Schunke, “Venezianische Renaissanceeinbände” in Studi di Bibliografia e di Storia in onore di Tammaro De Marinis (Verona 1963), pp.123–200 (pp.166, 169)
appendix: bound for claudia ragoni
Pietro Bembo, Delle lettere di m. Pietro Bembo primo volume (Rome: Valerio & Luigi Dorico for Carlo Gualteruzzi, September 1548)
provenance
● Claudia Rangone, supralibros, lettered “C[ontessa] Clavdia Rangona” on lower cover
● Girolamo, marchese d’Adda (1815-1881)
● Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919)
● Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, Catalogue of a further portion of the valuable library collected by the late Charles Fairfax Murray, Esq., of London and Florence, London, 17-20 July 1922, lot 89 (“contemporary calf, gilt tooled sides, a panel within a border of knot-work pattern with leafy ornaments at corners and sides, the panel decorated with line tooling to a grolieresque design, in the centre on a red inlay within a compartment formed by two interlacing squares, the lettering in gold (i) on the upper cover ‘Card. Bembo’ (ii) on the lower cover ‘C. Claudia Rangona,’ neatly mended and rebacked, g.e.” [link])
● Joseph Baer & Co., Frankfurt am Main - bought in sale (£5 15s) [Book Prices Current, 36, p.70; link]
● Tusculum Rare Books (Wolfgang J. Kaiser), London; their Catalogue XVI (London 2013), item 25 (€9800; “spine rebacked in 19th cent.; gilt edges (19th cent.)” [link])
● Brigitte Reh-Kaiser Versandantiquariat, Berlin; their Catalogue 12: Italia, 80 items 1494 to 2007 (Berlin 2022), item 16 (catalogue, [link]); Special List 12: Virtual book fair, Stuttgart 2022, February 18-22, 2022 (Berlin 2022), item 4 (€8900)
● Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, HBF 10358 (opac, Leder (Ziege, Maroquin, braun). Vorderdeckel: Blindprägung: Fileten. Goldprägung: Eckfelder: Aldusblatt. Florale Ornamentik. Bordüre: Flechtwerkknoten. Mittelfeld: Bandwerk (Arabesken), Sterne, florale Ornamentik. Mittelstück: Stern aus Bandwerk, Leder (Maroquin, rot, intarsiert): CARD. BEMBO. - Hinterdeckel: wie Vorderdeckel, aber Mittelstück: CLAUDIA RANGONA. - Rücken: drei Bünde. [link; link])
literature
Catalogo dei libri posseduti da Charles Fairfax Murray provenienti dalla Biblioteca del marchese Girolamo d’Adda (London [i.e. Florence] 1902), no. 490 (“Belle reliure italienne du XVIe siècle a compartiments à la Grolier habilement restaurée par M. Laengner. Esempl. avec sur les plats les noms. CARD. BEMBO. C. CLAVDIA RANGONA.” [link])
Christian Herrmann, Prägendes Werk der italienischen Schriftsprache erworben, WLB Blog 18.11.2022 (“Auf dem Rückdeckel des mit ornamentalen Motiven verzierten Einbands wird - geprägt auf intarsiertem, rotem Maroquin - der Name der ersten Besitzerin genannt. Es handelt sich um Claudia Rangona (ca. 1535/37-1593), die Gräfin von Correggio.” [link])