Italian (Venice), Upper cover of the commissione of an unknown Venetian nobleman, mid-seventeenth century. Gold-tooled leather, height 22.5 cm x width 16.5 cm. Accession Number: 4.a.1.2. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum © 2013 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Italian (Venice), Lower cover of the commissione of an unknown Venetian nobleman, mid-seventeenth century. Gold-tooled leather, height 22.5 cm x width 16.5 cm. Accession Number: 4.a.1.2. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum © 2013 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Italian (Venice), Interior of the commissione of an unknown Venetian nobleman, mid-seventeenth century. Green silk damask, height 45 cm x width 16.5 cm. Accession Number: 4.a.1.2. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum © 2013 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Leather tooled in gold with a border of interlacing ribbon lined by a lacy inner edge,leone in moleca within a fan-wheel, fan-shaped corner-pieces, and filigree, mid-seventeenth century.

The border, fan motifs and filigree decoration of this book's covers were inspired by new styles of bindings, which originated in France in the second half of the 1500s, and were copied and modified all over Europe in the following century. In Italy, these elaborate designs were introduced by French binders working for popes and cardinals in Rome. This commissione's rich but dainty design was inspired by the contemporary fashion for lace-trimmed collar and sleeve ruffs, which can be seen worn by wealthy men and women in sixteenth and seventeenth-century portraits.

Source: Anne-Marie Eze, Illuminating the Serenissima: Books of the Republic of Venice, special exhibition on view in the museum's Long Gallery, May 3 through June 19, 2011.

See related artworks for seventeenth-century lace, portraits of sitters dressed in lace, and a fan-shaped object in the collection.