Marcus Vigerius’ Decachordum Christianum Printed on Vellum by Girolamo Soncino in 1507
Vigerius, Marcus. Decachordum christianum Iulio II Pont. Max. dicatum. Fano [then Pesaro], Hieronymus Soncinus, 1507.
One of the great illustrated books of the Italian Renaissance and widely regarded as the most beautiful book ever printed by the celebrated Jewish printer Girolamo Soncino.
Printed on vellum in elegant humanist type and illustrated with ten monumental full-page cuts and thirty-three smaller Passion scenes, the Decachordum Christianum stands at the intersection of Renaissance devotional culture, Venetian artistic influence, and the extraordinary mobility of early sixteenth-century Jewish printing.
Only a handful of vellum copies of the first edition survive.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
Decachordum christianum Iulio II Pont. Max. dicatum. Fano [then Pesaro], Hieronymus Soncinus, 1507. aa8 a10 b-z8 &8 A10 B-E8 F10 AA-BB8 = 7 [instead of 8] leaves supplied from another copy, 246 numbered leaves, 16 leaves. Printed on vellum.
Illustrated with ten large full-page cuts within elaborate four-part border frames and thirty-three smaller cuts, most on criblé grounds. Folio (310 × 203 mm).
Early nineteenth-century midnight-blue morocco binding by Charles Lewis with richly gilt spine and covers, vellum doublures, double vellum endleaves, and gilt edges over red. Preserved in a modern blue half-morocco case. First gathering supplied from another copy; blank leaf aa8 lacking; occasional light yellowing to hair side of vellum.
Girolamo Soncino and Renaissance Italy
Few printers of the Renaissance led lives as restless and cosmopolitan as Girolamo Soncino.
Born into the famous Jewish Soncino printing dynasty, he moved continuously across Italy in response to opportunity, patronage, and religious pressure: Brescia, Barco, Fano, Pesaro, Ortona, Rimini, Cesena, Salonika, and finally Constantinople.
The Decachordum emerged during his period in Fano on the Adriatic coast, a city regarded as comparatively tolerant toward Jewish printers and intellectuals. There Soncino assembled an extraordinary workshop including the humanist Lorenzo Astemio and the punchcutter Francesco Griffo of Bologna, one of the great typographic craftsmen of the Renaissance.
The result was a book that contemporaries and later bibliographers alike regarded as the supreme achievement of the Soncino press.
Marcus Vigerius and the Life of Christ
The author, Marcus Vigerius della Rovere (1446–1516), belonged to the powerful della Rovere family connected to Pope Sixtus IV and Pope Julius II.
After a major ecclesiastical career culminating in the cardinalate, Vigerius withdrew temporarily into scholarly seclusion in 1506 to compose this deeply meditative devotional work structured around ten pivotal events in the life of Christ. He dedicated the text to his cousin Julius II.
The structure of the book unfolds almost cinematically.
Seven grand full-page illustrations first guide the reader through the Annunciation, Nativity, and early life of Christ within richly imagined Renaissance interiors. The emotional atmosphere then darkens abruptly as the Passion cycle begins in thirty-three tightly compressed scenes printed against agitated criblé backgrounds that seem almost to vibrate with grief and tension.
Again and again Christ appears on the Cross in repeated variations, creating what the catalogue brilliantly describes as an almost inescapable visual rhythm of suffering.
Then suddenly, after this oppressive sequence, comes the full-page Resurrection.
Venetian Renaissance Imagery
The illustrations belong stylistically to the Venetian artistic world around Giovanni Bellini.
The full-page cuts are framed by elegant black-ground architectural borders, while the pictorial language itself combines devotional gravity with Renaissance spatial sophistication. Stable perspectives open into grand interiors; draperies acquire sculptural weight; sacred history unfolds with theatrical clarity.
The effect is extraordinarily refined for an illustrated devotional book.
Scholars have debated the identities behind certain monograms within the cuts, though none can be securely resolved. What remains unquestioned is the exceptional artistic ambition of the cycle as a whole.
One of the Great Vellum Copies
Van Praet recorded only three vellum copies of the first edition.
This copy is the very example once offered by the London bookseller Longman in 1818–19 before passing into the libraries of George Hibbert and Beriah Botfield, two of the great nineteenth-century English bibliophiles. It was later rebound by the legendary binder Charles Lewis in sumptuous blue morocco.
The provenance alone places the volume within the highest tradition of European book collecting.
Provenance
Longman Catalogue, London, 1818/19, no. 10069, sold to George Hibbert (1757–1837). Sold at the Hibbert sale in 1829 to John Bohn and then to Beriah Botfield (1807–1863). Later sold at Christie’s, London, Highly Important Printed Books from Beriah Botfield’s Library, 30 March 1994, lot 36.
Literature
Adams V 746; Ascarelli/Menato 201; Brunet V, 1216; De Marinis 214; Essling I, 145; Fumagalli 119; Mortimer, Italian 537; Sander 7589; Servolini 112–115; Van Praet I, no. 413; among others.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 15:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I
