FEATURES ARCHIVE

Margaret Ford, Head of the London Books & Manuscripts department, marvels at the survival of a Renaissance library into the modern age; a group of volumes are offered in the Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts sale at King Street on 8 June 2011.

"One careful owner. As new." It is not often that a sales pitch for a second-hand car can apply so aptly to antiquarian books, but it perfectly describes this group of books from the Renaissance library of the Pillone family.

The books were bought simply as new, at the time of publication, from 1478 onwards, and the collection grew over the decades, filling the library shelves at the family seat, Villa Casteldardo in the Dolomites in North-Eastern Italy. In the 1580s Odorico Pillone, or possibly his son, commissioned the artist Cesare Vecellio to decorate the fore-edges of the books with paintings related to the book’s contents. The library remained untouched at Belluno for the next three centuries, only leaving the family ownership in 1874 when they were acquired en bloc by Sir Thomas Brooke. The Baronet and his heirs then retained the painted books for the next century, and the collection was finally dispersed in 1957. Thus, over the course of five centuries, the Pillone books had only two owners. And careful they were, for the books are indeed "as new," in their contemporary Renaissance Italian and German bindings, with wide margins, and even preserving occasionally the original instruction to the binder or artist.

As remarkable as their stability may be, it is their painted decoration that is truly extraordinary, and indeed unique in the Renaissance. The commission was given to Vecellio, a cousin of Titian in whose studio he worked.  He created a vivid array of author portraits, dressed in rich ermine, classical togas or monastic robes, as well as topographical scenes. Their effect individually is striking; their effect collectively is stunning. The group offered at auction on 8 June presents a rare opportunity for a modern collector to acquire a significant portion of a Renaissance library at a single stroke.