LA BELLA PRINCIPESSA and THE WARSAW SFORZIAD Circumstances of Rebinding and Excision of the Portrait Katarzyna Woźniak 10.05.2015 In the study titled La Bella Principessa and the Warsaw Sforziad, published in January 2011, Professor Kemp provided evidence that the portrait of Bianca Sforza was a part of an illuminated book printed on vellum - La Sforziada by Giovannni Simonetta, stored in the National Library in Warsaw1. The excision took place, most probably, during the process of rebinding. This was done meticulously, as his paper showed, although the knife slipped at near the bottom of the left edge2. At that moment, the portrait and the book were separated from each other and ceased to share the same fortune. 1. Images indicating that portrait of La Bella Principessa was part of a bound volume Author: Pascal Cotte My research initiated as a result of this discovery shows that the most probable date of rebinding of the Warsaw copy of La Sforziada was the turn of the 18th and 19th century3. The following text is an introduction to the first general analysis of the problems concerning 1 Martin Kemp and Pascal Cotte, La Bella Principessa and the Warsaw Sforziad (2010), The Leonardo da Vinci Society: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hosted/leonardo/#MM 2 M. Kemp and P. Cotte, op. cit., p. 5 3 Extensive study of the history of the Zamoyski book collection as well as scrupulous analysis of alterations to the original volume – decoration of new leather cover, watermarks on inserted sheets, bookplates, existing and obliterated inscriptions - will be presented in the book published by the British publishing house Ashgate. circumstances of rebinding and the contemporaneous excision of the portrait of La Bella Principessa. The findings will be extensively presented in a forthcoming book4. 2. La Sforziada. Book cover – front and two inscriptions by a different hand on the inserted sheet of paper5 The widely quoted, yet unproved theory is that La Sforziada was brought to Poland by Bona Sforza in 1518 on the occasion of her wedding with Sigismund I6. An alternative provenance will be introduced by Prof. Wright in the same publication7. Equally uncertain is whether this copy of the Italian book was part of the book collection of her son, King Sigismund II Augustus' (1520-1572) book collection. Several decades later, it was definitely a part of the collection of Jan Zamoyski (1542-1605), Royal Secretary, Great Royal Chancellor and Great Royal Hetman, and entered the Academy of Zamosc, which he established in the ideal city of Zamosc in 1594. The Sforziada was without doubt a part of the Library of the Academy. Current research has revealed that the first mention of this volume appears in an inventory of the Library of the Academy made in 1675; the next listing is in 1766. It remained a part of this collection until late 18th century, that is, until the Academy was closed down, as a result of the gradual and 4 This book will also contain meticulous analysis of the illumination by Giovanni Pietro Birago written by D. R. Edward Wright, Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of South Florida. 5 Photographs: National Library in Warsaw 6 Katarzyna Woźniak, The Warsaw Sforziad, The Leonardo da Vinci Society: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hosted/leonardo/#HH 7 Prof. Wright’s hypothetical reconstruction states that Bona Sforza could not have owned Sforziad and that it was sent to the Kingdom of Poland via king of France. irreversible decline of academic standards of the university, during the partition by the Austrian rulers in 17848. 3. “Plan de la Fortresse de Zamosc (…) Leipsic 1774” (C on the plan – “l’Academie”) 4. Main square with the building of the Academy in the top right corner 5. Aerial view of Zamosc a. Rectangular shape of the Academy in the middle on top b. Palace of Zamosc in the top left corner. Photo credit: http://www.ajsblo.pl/ 6. Aerial view of Zamosc with the rectangle of the Academy. Photo credit: Wojciech Gorgolewski The beginning of the 19th century brought numerous changes which will constitute the main topic of this paper. The most comprehensive and in-depth revival of the idea of the academic centre in Zamosc was conceived by Stanisław Zamoyski (1775-1856), the 12th Lord of Zamosc. As a bibliophile, who collected rare books and precious documents he envisioned a thoroughgoing cultural and economic reform of the Estate, including the restoration of his family seat in Zamosc and the reestablishment and revival of traditions of the once prestigious Zamoyski Academy. Hippaeum Zamoscianum and its library laid at the symbolic heart of the Count's cultural undertakings and was the most complex renovation since the 16th century. Although the Library of the Academy was formed in 1594, it is Count Stanislaw Zamoyski who, two centuries later, is described in literature as the actual founder of the Library of the 8 Part of the book collection may have been separated shortly before or after the Academy was closed down and transferred to the palace of the Lords of Zamosc. This subject will be discussed in the mentioned book. Entailed Estate of Zamość. 7. Stanislaw Kostka Zamoyski by Jean-Baptiste Augustin (1759-1832) Painted between 1803 and 1804, oil on canvas, 40×35cm Lost9 It remains uncertain whether it was him or his elder brother, Aleksander August Zamoyski, the 11th Lord of Zamosc in the years between 1792 and 1800, who ordered Mr Benoit, the concierge of the Academy, to create a catalogue of the library dated 180010. La Sforziada cannot be recognised in his catalogue, but it may have been concealed by the many oversimplifications. An alternative explanation is that Sforziad was part of the private library in the castle of Zamosc, the family seat of lords of the estate11. The beginning of the 19th century also witnessed also a significant attempt to unify the most valuable Polish aristocratic book collections – of the Zamoyski and Ossolinski families. From 1795 onwards, the year of the third and final partition of the Res Publica Serenissima - the Most Serene Republic - by Prussia, Russia and Austria - Earl Jozef Maksymilian Ossolinski (1748-1826) lived in Vienna. He was an erudite, bibliophile and a passionate art collector, whose book holdings consisted of almost thirty thousand volumes. At the end of his life he intended to bring them back to his home country, but since his book collection would have been endangered in partitioned Poland, as his collections were endangered by uncertain political situation, he was searching for a new and safe location. 9 Listed in the national catalogue of the objects lost in result of the Second World War: http://dzielautracone.gov.pl/katalog-strat-wojennych/obiekt/?obid=35636 10 The 11th Lord of Zamosc passed away suddenly and untimely in 1800 being only 28 years old. 11 One of the details that may confirm this theory is the partly obliterated inscription in Sforziad which will be discussed by me in detail in the mentioned book. 8. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795) on the contemporary map of Europe. Image credit: Augustinas Žemaitis 9. Partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795). Image source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Initially, Count Ossolinski intended to choose Cracow as the most suitable site for his extensive collections, but later, after he had asked Prince Adam Czartoryski (1734-1823) for advice, who heartily recommended Stanislaw, he decided on Zamosc - already the seat of another magnificent library12. The final agreement with Count Ossolinski regarding the location of the united libraries was reached in 1804 and a number of books from his collection still carry a bookplate with this date13. However, numerous preparations on the part of Count Zamoyski took place before this date. The Count intensively searched for faculty to join the former academy, which he turned into the High School of Zamosc, an institution whose scope was better suited for the town at the turn of the centuries. The printing house in the Academy had already been renovated by him in 1802. By 1804 he had not found a suitable librarian, but continued correspondence shows how much effort he put into finding the most suitable candidate in Europe, with the help of a number of distinguished scholars. It needs to be underlined that Stanislaw Zamoyski was not only taking care of the collections he already owned, but also put very intense efforts in purchasing new valuable manuscripts and early printed books with the help of agents and dealers in Europe and through extensive family connections14. 12 T. Makowski, Biblioteka Jana Zamojskiego, kanclerza i hetmana wielkiego koronnego. Założenia projektu badawczego, Wokół Biblioteki Ordynacji Zamojskiej, Biblioteka Narodowa, p. 13 13 There are significantly fewer books marked with this ex libris and the year “1804” than there are those marked with "1815", like Sforziada. Extensive study regarding these bookplates, watermarks, leather cover and its decoration, as well as numbers and inscriptions added later to this volume will be discussed in the mentioned book. 14 “He wished not only to become acquainted with foreign libraries, museums, and bookstores, to make promising contacts, but also to make appropriate purchases, impressions, and notes which later would be helpful in the management of the properties in country"14. Quotation after K. Ajewski, Stanisława Kostki Zamoyskiego życie i działalność, Warszawa 2010. Eventually, after several years of intense preparations, the plans for the unification of the major Polish libraries were thwarted by the conquest of the fortress of Zamosc by the Austrian army on May 20th 1809. His attempts were the last, before the library was transferred to Warsaw in the same year, where it was established as the Library of the Estate of Zamosc, operating under the same name until 1944.