In about the year 1623 Raphael Sadeler engraved a bookplate in three sizes for the Electoral Library of the Dukes of Bavaria at Munich. He also engraved a plate for the Elector Palatine’s libraries in Heidelberg and in Rome.
Raphael Sadeler and his elder brother Jan, and their nephew Gillis or Egidius Sadeler, were all skilful with the graver. Raphael was born at Brussels in 1555, and with his elder brother travelled through Germany, producing many engravings, and afterwards settling at Venice. Egidius, the nephew, was born at Antwerp in 1575; taught by his uncles Jan and Raphael, he lived to far surpass his teachers. After spending some time in Italy, he was invited to Prague by the Emperor Rudolph II. He died at Prague in 1629.
In 1640, or a little earlier, William Marshall engraved a bookplate for Edward, Lord Littleton, born in 1589 at Munston, in Shropshire, his father being Sir Edward Littleton, Chief Justice of North Wales, and his mother being a daughter of Edmund Walter, Chief Justice of South Wales. From Christ Church, Oxford, Littleton, in 1608, entered the Inner Temple. On his father’s death, in 1621, he became Chief Justice of North Wales. In 1625 he became member of Parliament for Leominster. He became counsel to the University of Oxford, Reader to the Inner Temple, and Recorder of London. In 1634 he was made Solicitor-General. In the meantime his great learning and high character made him much respected, and the City Aldermen sent him a courteous gift of two hogsheads of claret and a pipe of canary. Next, he became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and soon Lord Chancellor. In February, 1641, he was created Lord Littleton of Munston. Happily for him he died young, as in those stormy times he was too just a man to be a good party politician. It is interesting to note that on May 21st, 1644, he was commissioned to raise a regiment of foot soldiers, consisting of gentlemen of the Inns of Court and Chancery and others, himself becoming colonel. The great Lord Clarendon wrote of Littleton as a “handsome and proper man of a very graceful presence, and notorious for courage, which in his youth he had manifested with his sword.”
Above all, Littleton was incorruptible, winning, and keeping the respect of such opposite men as Clarendon and Bulstrode Whitelocke. Here we get a glimpse of his library, as it is recorded that when the Commons seized his books Whitelocke interceded and got the books given into his own care, so that, as he expressed it, “when God gave them a happy accommodation” he might restore them to rightful hands. The arms on the bookplate are the arms of Lyttelton of Frankley.
Littleton’s first wife was a daughter of John Lyttelton (spelt as you please) of Frankley, Worcestershire. Littleton died at Oxford on August 27th, 1645, and is buried in Christ Church Cathedral.
Not the least interesting point about this Littleton plate is that it was engraved by William Marshall, a name or initials found on such a great number of portraits and other book illustrations of this period. Not very much is known about him. The dates of his works range from 1591 to 1649.
A characteristic German plate, dated 1645, is, by the good authority of Warnecke, the work of the engraver Raphael Custos of Augsburg, eldest son of Dominicus de Coster, painter and engraver, and grandson of Pieter De Coster or Balten, poet and painter. This plate, engraved for Wilhelm and Clara Krep von Krepenstein, embraces the coats-of-arms of the small number of thirty-one ancestors.
“curæ numen habet justu move 4° eneid.
inde cruce hinc trutina armatus regique deoque
milito disco meis hæc duo nempe libris
ex libris Petri Maridat in magno Regis
consilio Senatoris”
are the inscriptions on the plate here illustrated of Theophilus Raynaud or Raynald, born in Piedmont, and died at the age of eighty in Lyons on October 31st, 1663. He was a learned Jesuit, and a most untiring student all his life, but, unlike most inveterate readers, he was bitter and morose of temper. Perhaps this was caused by his reading excesses, as it is told that he thought fifteen minutes almost too much to give to any meal. His portrait is in his: “tractatus depileo, cœterisque capitis tegminibus tam sacris quam profanis. D. D. Petro de Maridat, in magno Regis Christianissimi Consilio Senatori dicatus.” Under the portrait is the shield-of-arms, as on the bookplate, and above it the motto: “Dextera Domini fecit virtutem.” Below is: “Non potuit cœlum Capiti par addere, tegmen, Hoc Cœli effigiem perficientis erit.” The engraving is signed “L Spirinx fecit.” Nagler gives Ludwig Spirinx as an engraver born at Lyons or Dijon, and working in Brussels from about 1640 to 1660.
Coming once more to Nuremberg, there is the 1674 plate engraved by D. Krüger for Colonel Georg Christof Volckamer. There is no inscription on the plate, which shows a cherub sitting on a hill and holding a shield-of-arms. The colonel was not content to choose between helmet and coronet; he has elected to have both.