The authenticity of this bookplate is attested by manuscript notes found in the books containing the bookplate, which set forth details concerning the gift by Brandenburg.
The design depicts an angel with outspread wings carrying a shield charged with a device of an ox with a ring in his nose. Copies of it were found in some old board-bound manuscripts which had been presented to the monastery by one Hilprand Brandenburg. 1475 (Source: Rosenwald Collection)įor some time after the appearance of Lord de Tabley’s pioneer book on bookplates, a bookplate found in an old book in the Carthusian monastery at Buxheim, in Suabia, was considered the oldest bookplate The Earliest Bookplatesīookplate of Hilprand Brandenburg of Bibrach, c. It frequently tells a story its owner considers too sacred for the public gaze and only to be related to friends with whom he would share his joys and sorrows. The bookplate is, as a rule, an unobtrusive creature resting modestly within the covers of a book: there to be seen only by those in whom its owner has sufficient confidence to allow them to read his treasures. With it the booklover shows his affection for his books. The bookplate, or ex-libris if you choose, ex-libris being an adaptation from the Latin generally taken to mean ‘ from the books of‘, is one of the simple joys of life. Indeed, there seems to be practically no limitation to the choice of bookplate motifs except good taste and that imposed by the small size of the ordinary bookplate which exercises the artist’s skill more than most of us realize. Garden bookplates showing garden views are also frequently used with good effect. Then, gradually, the early conventional symbolism gave way to portraits, to decorative motifs, sometimes architectural or purely ornamental and sometimes such things as piles of books, or to landscapes or library interiors. Sometimes the heraldry was entirely superseded by such symbols where the love of books had spread to people not entitled to the use of armorial bearings or who considered other elements of design more appropriate for the purpose. Gradually, the custom of ornamenting the shields of arms by adding rococo or Jacobean scrolls, or by adding mantling, came into use, and, a little later, we find personal symbols other than heraldry entering into bookplate design. In early times we find heraldry dominating for the practical reason already mentioned but more freedom was given the bookplate artist as learning became more widespread.
On viewing a large collection of bookplates, one is led to the conclusion that the subject-matter for bookplates unlimited. I say booklover advisedly, because the casual possessor of a library rarely cares enough for his books to want to endow them with his name in this manner. The bookplate, then, is simply a mark of possession that the booklover pastes in his books, usually on the inside of the front cover, to denote his ownership. In olden times, the ability to read and write not being an accomplishment of the multitude, the bookowner would naturally choose an armorial achievement with which to mark his books because of the meaning it would convey to anyone who might find the book, whether he could read or not. Time-honored custom seems to demand that elementary expositions of the nature and use of bookplates should open with an explanation of the early use of heraldry on bookplates.
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