April 7, 2014
FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE FAVORITE AND CLOSE FRIEND OF QUEEN ELIZABETH I
A ROBERT DUDLEY BEAR BINDING WITH AN EARLY SCOTTISH VERSE INSCRIPTION by Patrick Home of Polwarth.
Osorio da Fonseca, Jeronimo, 1506-80. Hieronymi Osorii de gloria libri V. Florence, Laurence Torrentinus, 1552…Bound with.. . De Nobilitate civili, libri duo…. – Florence, Laurence Torrentinus, 1552. 2 vols. in 1; 8vo., 22.5 x 15 cm. Contemporary calf gilt, covers with double fillet and fleurs-de-lys corner pieces enclosing a cartouche with the badge of Robert Dudley, a bear chained to a ragged staff with a crescent for difference with his initials ‘R D’. Remarkably, unrestored with wear to boards and corners, hinges very weak or partially separated; internally some light marginal damp staining. While not unrecorded, the binding has not resurfaced since it was sold at Sotheby’s Monday, April 11th, 1932. Ref: BMC of Italian Books p. 478.
The lower title page bears the interesting 1608 Scottish English verse: “In all ye varld is na mair ado || bot sawll to kepe and honor to luik to” (In all the world [there] is no more necessary but [your] soul to kepe and honour to look to [ie. make sure you keep an eye on]), signed by Sir Patrick Home of Polwarth (1550-1609) the courtier and poet, as in the Flyting of Montgomerie and Polwarth. The facing inscription attests that this book was bought in London by him in 1608.
Lord Robert Dudley, the English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth was one of the first Englishmen, after Thomas Wotton, to commission gold-tooled bindings. An inventory at the dispersal of his possessions after his death in 1588, shortly after his crucial preparations to repel the Spanish Armada, records 232 books – of which 80 have survived in institutional collections. In commerce, Robert Dudley bindings are exceedingly uncommon.
Jerónimo Osório (1514-80) was the best known Portuguese writer of the period in England and his works were practically required reading for Elizabethan statesmen. “De Gloria and its companions … deal with the role of the leader in society from a Catholic and anti-Machiavellian perspective. Their first great English admirer was Roger Ascham, at the time Queen Mary’s Latin secretary, who thought De Nobilitate…might have been written with Cardinal Pole in mind. He had probably seen a copy of the Florentine edition of 1552, which was brought to England by two of Osório’s friends when they were sent there by Pope Julius III to congratulate Philip of Spain on his marriage to the English queen. [Ref: mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/files/windsor/4_earle.pdf] The work was translated by William Blandie into English in 1576: The fiue bookes of the famous, learned, and eloquent man, Hieronimus Osorius, contayninge a discourse of ciuill, and Christian nobilitie.
In all, a splendid pairing of remarkable provenance, a beautiful binding with a highly influential work that helped shape the Elizabethan mindset. [SOLD]
