BOUND FOR THE SON OF POPE GREGORY XIII
RUSCELLI, Girolamo.
Le imprese illustri con espositioni, et discorsi …
[(Colophon:) Venice, Comin da Trino di Monferrato, 1572.]
4to, ff. [4], 191, [11], 193–288, with 3 engraved part-titles and a further 18 full-page engravings, 111 engraved vignettes, and 1 double-page folding engraving depicting the battle of Mühlberg in the text (ff. 134–5); a few engravings double-struck, adhesive repair to front flyleaf, rust stain from paperclip to first 2 ff., variable foxing (particularly to double-page engraving) occasional marks throughout, pinhole wormhole touching foliation of f. 9; handsomely bound for Giacomo Boncompagni in sixteenth-century brown morocco, both boards gilt with Boncompagni dragon beneath arms of the Gonfaloniere della Chiesa, surmounted by a helm and an angel, within gilt oval frame, borders filleted in gilt and blind, gilt floral cornerpieces, gilt edges; relaid over brown calf in 1926 by A. Martini in Rome, spine gilt in compartments with Boncompagni dragon device in imitation of the original (of which a large fragment is loosely inserted, see below), vestigial ties to fore-edge, small wormtrack to lower board, spine worn (neatly consolidated); seventeenth-century ink stamp with ducal coronet and Boncompagni dragon to first title.
Second edition of one of the finest emblem books of the sixteenth century, illustrated with over one hundred engravings depicting the imprese of notable figures in Italy and beyond, our copy bound for Giacomo Boncompagni, illegitimate son of Pope Gregory XIII.
First printed in 1566, Girolamo Ruscelli’s Imprese illustri provides a detailed account of the qualities and composition of an ideal impresa – making much reference to Giovio’s Dialogo – before providing handsome illustrations of over one hundred imprese, including those of Philip II, Charles V, Maximilian II, Pope Clement VI, and Catherine de’ Medici, each accompanied by iconographical descriptions and analysis of mottoes. Also included are Isabella and Lucrezia Gonzaga, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and Cosimo de’ Medici.
Our copy was sumptuously bound – likely in Rome – for Giacomo Boncompagni (1548–1612), son of Pope Gregory XIII (born Ugo Boncompagni); made legitimate two months after his birth, he studied at Trento and Padua and was later Marquess of Vignola and Duke of Sora, Aquino, Arce, and Arpino. Here, the tail-less Boncompagni dragon appears beneath the crossed keys and ombrellino which symbolise the office of Gonfaloniere della Chiesa, conferred upon Giacomo by his father in 1572, while the bust of an angel above is perhaps a nod to his position as castellan of Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo, which he took up in the same year.
Some twenty bindings for Giacomo Boncompagni are described by Michel Wittock, only three of which incorporate the angel and helm as here, as opposed to a ducal coronet (he was named a member of the Venetian nobility in 1576). Boncompagni’s library appears to have remained in the family until 1796, when the family’s property was seized following the French conquest of Vignola; a portion of the library – then in sad shape – would only be recovered by Luigi Boncompagni in 1811. The boards of our copy were relaid over brown calf in 1926 by A. Martini & Co. in Rome, luxury binders and restorers of furniture, for the painter and illuminator Nestore Leoni (1682–1947); a fragment of the original spine has been pinned to Martini’s card and loosely inserted.
BM STC Italian, p. 593; EDIT16 CNCE 24805; USTC 853913; Adams R-953; Landwehr, Romanic 648; Praz, p. 483; cf. Brunet IV, col. 1463 (1584 edition only). See Wittock, ‘Giacomo Boncompagni: heurs et malheurs d’une bibliothèque’, in Mélanges d’histoire de la reliure offerts à Georges Colin (1998), pp. 103–118.
