Angel bookplate of Hilprand Brandenburg of Biberach

1480

From Alex L. Ames, The Art of Ownership: Bookplates and Book Collectors from 1480 to the Present (2017). Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia

Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia

This hand-coloured wood-cut print of an angel holding a shield emblazoned with an ox is the first known bookplate. Created in 1480 by an unknown artist, the bookplate, tipped in a copy of Jacobus de Voragine’s Sermones quadragesimales (Bopfingen, Württemberg, 1408), belonged to Hilprand Brandenburg of Biberach (1442-1514). He eventually gave his collection of some 450 volumes to the Carthusian monastery at Buxheim, near Memmingen, Germany. From this small beginning began the tradition of bookplates in books, the most tangible display of ownership.