Renaissance Book Collecting
Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, their Books and Bindings

This 1999 book studies and compares the famous sixteenth-century libraries of Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza.

Anthony Hobson (Author)

9780521651295, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 July 1999

296 pages
29.7 x 21.6 x 2.5 cm, 0.98 kg

'Renaissance Book Collecting, while adding much to familiar bibliographical subjects such as library history and bookbinding studies, enriches much more our knowledge of the history of the book … This is a work that synthesizes several centuries of scholarship at the same time as adding much that is genuinely new. The Lyell electors were no doubt delighted with the original lectures; they have much to thank Cambridge University Press for in producing a lasting version of them.' The Library

This book, first published in 1999, studies and compares two sixteenth-century libraries. Jean Grolier's was a bibliophilic 'cabinet' of fine books; Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's was a much larger and more scholarly collection; a full catalogue is provided for the first time. Both men were greatly influenced by experience of Italy. Grolier has been called 'the Prince of Bibliophiles'; the books he commissioned have long been famous. This is the first full account of his life for eighty years. Hurtado de Mendoza was a poet, historian, Greek scholar and Arabist. He served as the Emperor's Ambassador in Venice (1540–6), to the Council of Trent (1545–6), and to the Pope (1547–52). In Venice he set out to form for Spain a collection of Greek manuscripts to rival that being formed for France by Francis I's agents. Anthony Hobson's text is complemented by ninety-one illustrations, several thematic indexes, eleven appendices and a bibliography.

List of illustrations
Abbreviations
1. Grolier: the early years
2. Grolier in Italy 1515–21
3. Grolier in France
4. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza
5. Venetian sixteenth-century bookbinders
Catalogue of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's library of printed books
Index of printers and publishers
Index of editors, commentators and translators
Index of plaquette bindings
Appendices: 1. Grolier's bindings classified by workshop
2. Grolier's petition to Francis I
3. Anne Briçonnet's coins and medals
4. The Venetian catalogue of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's Greek manuscripts
5. Bindings by the Mendoza Binder (Andrea di Lorenzo)
6. Andronicus Nucius's power of attorney
7. Bindings by the Cicero Binder
8. Bindings by the Fugger Binder
9. Venetian Bindings by Anthoni Lodewijk
10. Bindings by the Agnese Binder (Bartolomeo di Giovanni da Fino?)
11. Bindings by the Emblematic Binder
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Antiques & collectables: books, manuscripts, ephemera & printed matter [WCS]