The Latin expression “ex libris” (or bookplate) refers to a mark (stamp, vignette, text, or printed tag) generally affixed to the front board or front endpaper of a book in order to indicate its ownership. Such symbols of possession, in use since ancient times, underwent a gradual evolution, beginning with simple handwritten inscriptions (fig. 1) up to the modern form of the printed card (fig. 2).
The advent of the printing press was crucial to this evolution as was, in particular, the development of the woodcut in Germany in the second half of the fifteenth century, when in order to give greater emphasis to the indication of ownership, sheets bearing the printed or engraved name of the owner, his coat of arms or a symbolic badge or allegorical figure were used, often accompanied by a motto.
The first dated ex libris was created in 1516 by the German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer for Hieronymus Ebner (fig. 3).
The first known Italian ex libris instead date back to the sixteenth century: those of the bishop of Tortona Cesare dei Conti Gambara (1548), of the Pistoian jurist Niccolò Pilli (1559) or the ownership mark of the Venetian patrician Giacomo Contarini (c. 1560) which appears on all his volumes, since donated to the Marciana National Library in Venice (fig. 4).
The use of the heraldic ex libris was established during the seventeenth century. This bore the noble coat of arms or the portrait of the owner alongside a motto, and was used by aristocrats, ecclesiastics, and also the booksellers to label their book collections (fig. 5). This type of symbol became widespread in the eighteenth century and the woodcut technique was gradually replaced by more refined techniques, such as those of chalcography and, later, lithography.
At the same time the spread of scientific academies and societies encouraged the birth of new libraries connected to the resurgence of scholarly study, which fuelled an interest in all aspects of books, including their ornamentation.
The ex libris was at its most widespread in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: it became the object of collecting and study and became more than just a proof of ownership, but rather a form of art in its own right, at which renowned exponents of Art Nouveau (fig. 6-7) — including Gustav Klimt, the futurist Umberto Boccioni and the Dutch artist and engraver Maurits Cornelis Escher — tried their hand.
While the ex libris flourished as a form of art, it also became a collector’s item, leading in fact to the birth of the first societies of ex libris enthusiasts at the international level. The first was the Ex Libris Society of London, established in 1891, which was followed by the American Bookplate Society in Washington, also formed at the end of the nineteenth century. Founded at Turin in 1912, the Italian Association of Ex Libris Enthusiasts instead had limited success and a very brief life.
By then setting aside its primary purpose, the ex libris increasingly reflected the taste and personality of its owner and collector (fig. 8-10).
The analysis and study of an ex libris or other marks of ownership not only serves to reconstruct the history of a book and trace its past owners, but also to retrace its movement in space and time, enabling us, in the specific case of atlases, to undertake a genuine “journey within a journey.”
The use of the ex libris is still alive and well in our own time: a simple signature on a book we have at home is in effect a sign of possession!