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I n the wak🌳e of the recent papal conclave, the symbols of the Vatican – the red shoes, the Fisherman’s Ring, the Latin chants echoing through the Sistine Chapel – have returned to the global stage. But some of the most revealing artifacts of papal power are not garments or rituals. They are books.
This summer, in London and New York, Sotheby’s offers several exceptional volumes from the Bibliotheca Brookeriꦏana – a collection that has come to define Renaissance and early modern book collecting in our time. Among them are a number of bindings commissioned for or owned by popes – precious survivals that speak to both the material grandeur and the intellectual gravity of the Holy See.
July 11 will see the 7th installment of the magnificent Bibliotheca Brookeriana, principally featuring books from the 15th to the 17th century, in unusual, elegant and notable bindings.
This 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:magnificent folio volume, also for Pius V, includes tooling found on two other items in the Bibliotheca Brookeriana. The cornerpieces and triple-dot stamps are also found on a 1551 Venetian edition of Augustinus, 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Sextus tomus operum and on the box containing 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Capocaccia’s wax portrait of Pius V. The Brooker library is an extraordinarily focused collection, and this is just one example of the fascinating ways in which th🍸e complex objects within it speak to one another.
Another interesting feature of this binding is where the title is placed. Nowadays, we are used to the idea of shelvingꦅ our books with the spines facing outwards, but this was not always the case. In the 16th century, it was still common practice to shelve a book with the textblock facing outwards, so the el♎egantly gauffered title on the fore-edge serves a practical purpose as well as an aesthetic one. In fact, the lettering here is horizontal rather than vertical – a hangover from the medieval practice of shelving books flat (a method which became increasingly impractical as the size of libraries grew).
A further subtle but equally intriguing detail is the fact that a section of the lower board also containing the title has been inserted at a later date, since the shape of the lettering is not contemporary and the gold is a slightly different color to that of the rest of the tool🅷ing. Although we cannot be certain as to why the binding was altered in this way, a compelling theory is that the title was inserted so as to aid identification of the volume when displayed on a lectern.
Sixtus V is best known for his role as a zealous proponent of the Counter-Reformation. His headstrong foreign policy included the excommunication of Henry IV of France and the renewal of the excommunication of Elizabeth I of England. Closer to home♉, he sought🔯 to root out corruption, and launched a controversial rebuilding programme, including the destruction of antiquities.
This copy of 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:De Clave David by Nicolas Sanders (circa 1530-81), English Catholic priest and polemicist, is dedicated to Sixtus V. The volume is highly likely to be the dedication copy, not only because the binding bears his arms, but also because a copy is entered in the Pope’♔s autograph library catalogue at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
On June 25, the Bibliotheca Brookeriana returned to New York for the third auction of Renaissance-era volumes published by Aldus Manutius – the largest assemblage of Aldines to come to market in a century and the only private library of its kind ever amassed outside Europe.
Bound circa 1569 in sumptuously gilt-red morocco over wooden boards, this composite volume of 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Counter-Reformation treatises belonged to Pope Pius V (r. 1566-72), canonized in 1712. Known for standardizꦓing the Tridentine Mass and excommunicating Queen Elizabeth I, Pius was al𝄹so a Dominican reformer who understood the symbolic weight of the book. He was canonized by Pope Clement XI in 1712.
The binding, executed by the Vatican Bindery, is elaborate and distinct. The official papal workshop, active f🍸rom the early 1500s and still in operation today, has historically been responsible for the volumes of the Apostolic Library and papal collections. Located within the Vatican Palace, the bindery has long employed some of the most skilled artisans of their time, whose tools – like the distinctive floral stamps and arabesque rolls seen here – helped define the visual language of the Counter-Reformation.
Four theological works are united between covers stamped with Pius’s armorial supralibros, framed in arabesque rolls and floral tooling. Brass bosses add a punch of gravitas. Inside, a rare edition of Disputationes quaedam ecclesiasticae is followed🌌 by patristic and devotional texts – tools for spiritual warfare, in the hands of a pope w🌳ho led the Church through some of its most decisive decades.
From spiritual discipline to scholarly breadth: this 1594 Aldine edition of Marcus Welser’s 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Rerum Augustanarum, bound in striking red Roman morocco, bears the gilt arms of Pope Benedict XIV (r. 1740-58) – one of the most erudite pontiffs of the Enlightenment era. Printed by Aldo II Manuzio, it is the first issue of a historical chr꧟onicle whose German translation followed ♉a year later, complete with attractive engraved plates.
Pope Benedict XIV – born Prospero ꩲLorenzo Lambertini – was not only a formidable canonist but also a patron of science, antiquarian learning, and ecclesiastical reform. His scholarly output included treatises on hagiography, numismatics, and the regulation of censorship, making him one of the most intellectually engaged pontiffs of the early modern period. His library, and the bindings it commissioned, reflect his taste for refined yet erudite presentation.
The gilt red morocco binding on this volume embodies the ceremonious dignity of the papal court while engaging the visual language of ﷽Enlightenment Rome. The upper cover bears Benedict’s arms as pope; the lower, those of a cardinal – perhaps indicating an earlier phase in Lambertini’s career or signaling provenance within the papal curia. The decorative stamps – pineapple, shell, fleur-de-lis – exemplify elite Roman binding workshops of the mid-18th century, which combined French stylistic influence with Italian craftsmanship. Pontifical bindings of this caliber, especially on secular or historical texts, underscore the interweaving of religious authority and humanist inquiry that characterized Benedict’s papacy.
Long after the smoke has cleared and papal rings have passed into history, these bindings remain in their gilded splendor. Stamped with the insignia of saints and sovereigns, they are more than vessels of text: they are instruments of authority,✨ crafted to impress and endure.
Through them, the papacy extended its reach – not only in doctrine and decree, but in the very objects that bore its seal. In the Bibliotheca Brookeriana, that legacy – bound in leaꦅther and burnished with gold – st💙ill speaks.
![View 1 of Lot 1477: Taxaquet, Disputationes quaedam ecclesiasticae, Rome, Ex domo propria [Paolo Manuzio?], 1565, richly gilt red morocco over wooden boards, by the Vatican Bindery](http://laitexier.com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/8cff65e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1521x2000+0+0/resize/286x376!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com%2Fwebnative%2Fimages%2Fcb%2F25%2Faf11af5940dda06e0228e3b50b0b%2Fn11571-cnshn-t2-01.jpg)
![View 1 of Lot 1557: Welser, Rerum Augustanar, Venice, [Aldo II Manuzio], 1594, eighteenth-century Roman red morocco](http://laitexier.com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/75b9383/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1376x2000+0+0/resize/259x376!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com%2Fwebnative%2Fimages%2Fa7%2F4b%2Fc092e454414b88d7c6c10510ffde%2Fn11571-cnsmy-t2-02.jpg)
