Justice enthroned, lion of St. Mark with book inscribed in Latin 'Peace be with you Mark, my Evangelist', and Bollani family arms. Silver seal with St. Mark blessing the doge, cord and tassel of metallic and red silk thread, and silk spine, 1718.

This is a rare example of a commissione with the bolla, or ducal seal, still attached. The subject depicted on the seal emphasized that the doge's authority was divinely ordained. The cover's female figure of Justice, holding a sword and scales, and wearing a doge's horned hat, symbolizes the Venetian government's charge to preserve peace by means of justice. She reminded the commissione's recipient, Giovanni Bollani, of his duty to administer justly at Chioggia, an important town at the southern limit of the Venetian lagoon. The covers were decorated using the metalwork techniques of repoussé, hammering the silver from the back to create a design in relief, and chasing, or tooling detail or ornament on the front. The unknown silversmith signed his sumptuous work with the initials AP.

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 the related artwork for a figure of Venice personified with lions of St. Mark in the museum's collection.

Illuminating the Serenissima: Books of the Republic of Venice

Purchased by Bernard Quaritch, London bookseller and publisher (1819-1899), on behalf of Isabella Stewart Gardner at the sale of the library of Edward Cheney (1803-1884), art collector and watercolor painter, at Sotheby’s, London, 25 June 1886, lot 663.

Select bibliography

Morris Carter. A choice of Manuscripts and Bookbindings from the Library of Isabella Stewart Gardner Fenway Court. Boston, 1922, pp. 43-44, 100.

Seymour de Ricci with the assistance of W. J. Wilson. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. 3 vols. New York, 1935-40, I, p. 934.

Helena Szépe. "Isabella Stewart Gardner's Venetian manuscripts" in Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle. Boston, 2004, p. 233.