A Rare Plantin Bible Preserved in an Extraordinary Spanish Silver-Embroidered Binding
Biblia, Ad vetustissima exemplaria castigata. Antwerp, Christophe Plantin, 1565.
A unique survival at the intersection of book history, relic culture, and Counter-Reformation devotion: the personal Bible of Saint Charles Borromeo, preserved together with notarized seventeenth-century documents authenticating its provenance and venerated as a relic shortly after the saint’s canonization. The volume survives in a magnificent Spanish silver-embroidered binding with its original embroidered silk satchel and velvet-covered wooden case.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
Two parts bound in one volume.
*8 A–Z8 a–z8 Aa–Cc8; A–P8; A–D8 = 8 leaves, 392 numbered leaves, 98 numbered leaves, 21 leaves (index), 1 blank leaf; 32 leaves (Interpretatio nominum hebraicorum). Printed in double columns within black typographic borders and with marginal commentary throughout.
Illustrated with architectural woodcut title border, large printer’s device, and numerous woodcut initials. Small quarto (195 × ca. 130 mm).
The present edition is the first octavo Bible published solely by Christophe Plantin and among the rarest of his biblical productions. Leon Voet recorded only five known copies, including the incomplete copy in the Plantin-Moretus Museum itself.
Physical Description & Binding
Seventeenth-century Spanish silver-embroidered binding over purple-red velvet laid onto leather boards. The covers richly decorated with raised silver-thread embroidery heightened with yellow thread to create a gold shimmer. The front and rear covers embroidered respectively with the inscriptions:
“BIBLA DEL USO DE S CARLOS BOROMEO”
and
“CARDENAL Y ARCOBISPO DE MILAN.”
Silver clasps with pierced fittings; gilt edges throughout. Preserved in its original green silk satchel with elaborate silver and gold embroidered frames, floral corner ornaments, large central crosses, braided cord fastenings, and purple silk lining, itself housed in an early velvet-covered wooden case.
The ensemble is extraordinarily well preserved. Comparable embroidered bindings are exceptionally rare, and few survive with such complete devotional accessories intact.
The Personal Bible of Saint Charles Borromeo
The volume’s extraordinary historical significance rests upon two manuscript notarized documents bound at the end of the book and dated 1626. These documents certify that the Bible had belonged personally to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo (1538–1584), Archbishop of Milan and one of the central figures of the Counter-Reformation.
According to the notarized testimony, the Cistercian monk Michael de Casentino received the Bible directly from Borromeo’s own hands during a visit to Milan. Casentino later presented it to Álvaro de Mendoza, Bishop of L’Aquila, formally declaring before witnesses that the volume should be venerated as a relic because of its intimate association with the saint.
The act was notarized in L’Aquila on 17 March 1626 and confirmed by the Benedictine abbot Giovanni Antonio Gaudi with seal attached.
Saint Charles Borromeo and the Counter-Reformation
Carlo Borromeo, nephew of Pope Pius IV, became one of the defining ecclesiastical figures of the Catholic Reformation. He played a decisive role at the final sessions of the Council of Trent and emerged as one of the principal architects of post-Tridentine Catholicism.
The Council’s insistence upon a unified and authoritative biblical text directly shaped the present Bible. The edition derives from the Louvain revision supervised by the Dominican Johannes Hentenius, whose recension became the standard Catholic Vulgate text before the Vatican edition of 1590. Contemporary scholars regarded it as “the most exact and in every way the best.”
Because the volume is both recent for its date and compact in format, it was almost certainly Borromeo’s personal reading Bible rather than a ceremonial church copy.
A Relic of the Early Cult of Borromeo
Borromeo’s cult began almost immediately after his death in 1584. By 1610 he had already been canonized by Pope Paul V, whose canonization bull described him as “a martyr of charity, a shining example for shepherds and flock alike, an angel in human form.”
The present Bible therefore documents not merely the saint’s ownership, but the very early formation of Borromean relic devotion. The embroidered satchel and devotional presentation transform the object into something closer to a portable reliquary than an ordinary book.
Provenance
Saint Charles Borromeo (1538–1584), canonized 1610.
Gifted by Borromeo to the Cistercian monk Michael de Casentino.
Presented in a notarized act dated 17 March 1626 to Álvaro de Mendoza, Bishop of L’Aquila.
Described in Tenschert XL: Fünfzig Unica, no. 13.
European private collection.
Literature
Adams B 1069; Bibliotheca Sussexiana I/2, p. 433, no. 123; BM STC Dutch 22; Delaveau/Hillard 898; Heitzmann/Santos Noya D 718; Voet, Compasses I, 681 and IV, 1749.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, lot 89:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II
