As in many cases designers’ or engravers’ signatures are found on plates which have no owners’ names, the use of the term anonymous, applied to such ex-libris, would have been ambiguous or misleading. I have, therefore, spoken of ownerless plates as nameless.
I have already alluded in the Introductory Chapter to the three most interesting dated French plates before 1650, namely: Caroli Albosii, 1574, of which a facsimile is here; Alexandre Bouchart, 1611, reproduced by M. Bouchot; and Melchior de la Vallée, 1613, which has been reproduced in both the “Archives de la Société Française” and the “Ex-Libris Journal.”
There is a fourth plate, dated 1644, yet to be described, and a few additional notes about the above will be given, as we reach them in their order.
First, there can be no doubt as to the authenticity of the label of Caroli Albosii, or Charles Ailleboust, Bishop of Autun, whose father had been doctor to Francis I., and died at Fontainebleau, in 1531.
Charles Ailleboust is described in the histories of the time as having been a handsome man, of courtly manners and great learning. He was educated for the Church, but he also obtained several court appointments, through the interest of his father’s many friends, and was procureur-général in the province of Lyons. He died in the town of Autun, on December 29, 1585, and was buried in the Church of Saint Jean-de-la-Grotte.
On his episcopal seal his arms are shown as a chevron between three trefoils within a bordure. No mention is made as to the extent or nature of the library left by this Bishop of Autun, but his ex-libris was found in a work printed in Lyons in 1566, entitled “Les secrets miracles de Nature.”
One of the most curious points about this remarkable label is that it exactly synchronizes with the earliest known dated British book-plate, namely, that of Nicholas Bacon. But for the solace of our national vanity it may be said that the latter is the more important of the two, being a coloured armorial woodcut.
Amongst the finest examples of plates before 1650 may be named the series of three, in different sizes, engraved for Jean Bigot, Sieur de Sommesnil (the head of a Norman family of famous book-lovers).
All three plates are nameless; the arms are irregularly emblazoned, whilst the helmet and supporters are drawn in such an antique style as to give the plates the appearance of even greater age than they possess. Possibly they may have been copied from some very old painting. Later on this Bigot has another suite of armorial book-plates engraved with his name, Johannes Bigot. In these the tinctures are indicated on the shield by their initial letters. As a collector his son Emeric was even more famous, and added greatly to the library he inherited from his father. He had three armorial ex-libris, one large, and two small, on which the tinctures are correctly shown, with the name, L. E. Bigot. These are all signed with a monogram formed of B and D entwined.