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

Description

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.

'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