Montaigne, Les Essais, Bordeaux, 1580. Presentation copy for Elizabeth I. BNF, Rés Z-Payen 2. Credit BNF.

From Montaigne to the Revolution: French bookbindings and other bibliophily

Thu 5 March 2020

Clare College Memorial Court

Sandars Lectures 2020, hosted by Cambridge University Library

This second Sandars Lecture will deal with the beginning of the fanfare style, c 1565, and the role of a young bibliophile, Claude de Laubespine, who died in 1570 at the age of 25 (no binding made for him has yet been discovered in Cambridge collections). Michel de Montaigne was a little older than Laubespine, but his bookish career began in the same period, at the end of the 1560s. From items in the magnificent Montaigne collection donated to Cambridge University Library by Gilbert de Botton in 2008, and from remarkable copies of Montaigne’s Essais preserved around in the world, we shall trace changing approaches to collecting Montaigne.

The seventeenth century will be scrutinized through the remarkable figure of Peiresc, astronomer, antiquary and collector, and various other French book owners. The most important one represented in Cambridge collections is the Sun King himself, Louis XIV. Several books bound for his library have found their way to Cambridge, allowing us to trace the constitution and the development of the so-called “Cabinet du roi”.

Finally, thanks to the identification of the binding covering one of the most important manuscripts of the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Medici Psalter of c. 1480, this lecture will explain how a small group of inspired French collectors, around 1700, began to collect medieval and Renaissance books and manuscripts, and commissioned special “retrospective bindings” for their most precious volumes.

About the series: visit https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/sandars.

About the speaker:

A French “archivist-paleographer” trained at the Ecole des Chartes, Isabelle de Conihout worked for twelve years in the Rare Books Department at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, then spent fifteen years as the senior librarian at the Bibliothèque Mazarine. From 2014 to 2017, she was Head of Christie’s Paris Books and Manuscripts Department. In addition to research on first editions and literary libraries, she is particularly interested in the history of collections (cabinets of curiosities, botany and nature printing) and the history of bookbinding (Grolier, Mahieu, Claude de Laubespine, 17th and 18th century bibliophiles).

Lecture is free to attend and open to all. Following the lecture, guests are welcome to attend a drinks reception and display in the University Library until 7pm.

No booking required; seats offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

Cost: Free