Lot 310: [JONI, Icilio Federico (b.1865/66), binder.] -- [CONTI, Sebastiano (1623-1696) & Giambattista

[JONI, Icilio Federico (b.1865/66), binder.] -- [CONTI, Sebastiano (1623-1696) & Giambattista FERRARI (1584-1655)]. Fasti senenses. [Senis: Per Academiam Intronatorum, 1669].

2 o (340 x 218 mm). Errata leaf. Two engraved plates by Guillaume Vallet, the first, after Raphael Vanni, showing the B.V.M. looking down with favor on an allegorical figure of Siena. the second, after Carlo Maratta, showing (under the title of this work) a woman watering the tree of the arts from which cherubs gather fruit. (Lacks frontispiece, some dampstaining.) Painted 'tavolette' book covers in Biccherna style, front side with portrait of St. Ansanus Anicius, patron Saint of Sienna, the back cover with 14 coats-of-arms of patricians and the title, both on gold grounds, 4 metal bosses on each side, probably by Icilio Federico Joni (sides rubbed, covers bowed, rebacked with leather). Provenance: purchased from Emil Offenbacher, 8 November 1961.

Joni was a Sienese painter and restorer who produced imitations of the wooden panel bindings (tavolette della biccherna) used to cover the accounts of Siena from the middle of the 13th to the end of the 17th centuries. By his own admission, he never visited the city archives to inspect the originals, and his bindings are in fact anachronistic. From 1459 the accounts were bound in leather, yet Joni gave his bindings dates post-1459. While he sold a number of his imitations as medieval and Renaissance originals, he openly described his forgery work in his autobiography (Le Memorie di un pittore di Quadri Antichi, 1932, English trans. 1936). Joni bindings -- undetected -- have graced some of the greatest book collections, including those of Hoe and Wilmerding. Even recognised as imitations, they had great cachet, as the commission by Lady Wantage for a binding in 1904 demonstrates. At least 14 examples of Joni's work are recorded and more are in circulation. See H.M. Nixon, 'Binding Forgeries,' Transactions of the VIth International Congress of Bibliophiles, 1969, Vienna, 1971, pp. 69-83; and M. Foot, 'A Pair of Bookcovers of the late 19th Century by I.F. Joni, The Book Collector, 1985, pp. 488-489.

The Fasti Senenses, compiled by two Jesuits, Sebastiano Conti and Giambattista Ferrari, is a collection of biographies of the Sienese saints, blesseds, and servants of God, arranged chronologically according to their feast days on the local calendar. Entries range from St. Ansanus (depicted on the front cover of the binding), a martyr under Diocletian and patron of Siena, to a South American martyr, Horatio de Vecchi, S.J., and include the most famous of Sienese saints, St. Catherine. DeBacker-Sommervogel II:1390-91 & III:678.