This binding was made in Venice by the “Fugger Binder”, also known as the “Venetian Apple Binder” around 1540. The workshop in which this book was bound goes under two different names. Dr Ilse Schunke¹ christened it the “Venezianischer Fugger Meister”, a name adopted by A. R. A. Hobson as the “Fugger Binder”.² However, although this atelier, at work in Venice in the 1530s, 1540s and 1550s, was patronised by Johann Jakob Fugger, it had a large and distinguished clientele. Members of well-known Venetian families, such as a member of the Contarini family, Girolamo Grimani, Petro Sanuto and Zannetta Fenollosi all had books bound there. Cardinal Granvelle was among its patrons and collectors from abroad, such as Thomas Mahieu and Marc Laurin, possessed bindings from this shop. 

It seems therefore unfortunate to name this bindery after one of its clients and it would seem preferable to call it, the “Venetian Apple Binder” after one of its most frequently used and most easily identified finishing tools: an apple with four leaves, although this tool does not occur on every binding from this shop.³ This binder often decorated the centre of the covers with an armorial shield, frequently left empty, as on the binding described and illustrated here, but sometimes showing the painted arms of its owner. He quite often tooled the title of the book on the cover or added mottos or initials. The latter, unless accompanied by an inscription or other form of provenance, are very difficult to identify. 

Mirjam Foot 

¹ I. Schunke, “Venezianischer Renaissanceeinbände”, in Studi di bibliografia e di storia 1964, vol. IV. 

² Hobson A. 1999, pp. 119-132. 

³ Foot 1978-2010, vol. I, pp. 309-322; vol. III, nos. 293-298.