The bookbinding scholars Isabelle de Conihout and Pascal Ract- Madoux reconstructed the Laubespine-Villeroy library in a tour de force of hands-on historical research. They identified the books on the basis of inventory numbers inscribed on the flyleaves in brown ink (hence the term cote brune). Until then curators and collectors had struggled to explain these magnificent and mysterious bindings. Former Morgan director Frederick Adams declared that this elegant example “sends a tingle of pleasure down the spine” but regretted that he could not name the original owner. Now Claude III de Laubespine can be credited with commissioning the binding, executed in Paris circa 1567–68 by the Atelier au Vase.
Jacopo Vignola (1507−1573)
Regola delli cinque ordini d’architettura (Rules of the
Five Orders of Architecture)
[Rome: s.n., 1562–64]
The Morgan Library & Museum, Purchased in 1960; PML 51314