Almanacco della Real Casa e Corte, per l'anno 1823

Napoli Dalla Stamperia Reale 1823. Small 8vo, 135 x 95 mms., pp. lxxx, 130, folding engraved map of Sicily, outlined in colour at end of text, engraved portrait of Ferdinand 1 as frontispiece, handsomely bound in contemporary straight-grain red morocco, gilt roll border on covers, spine richly gilt, all edges gilt, with the gilt arms of the Duchess du Berry on each cover; some slight rubbing of front joint, but a very good to fine copy. In the text, reference to "Duchessa di Barry" on page LX, and her own birth and marriage are recorded on page 5. She was also an astute collector: " The Duchesse de Berry's collecting was not restricted to paintings. She loved books, particularly the novels of Walter Scott and the plays of Victor Hugo. The bindings of the books in her library, one of the most admired of the day, are masterpieces from the golden age of French book-binding : a black mourning binding decorates Chateaubriand's tribute to her husband. All bindings bear her coat of arms, pairing Berry and the Two Sicilies" (Mansel). The website for Musée Cpmdé de Chantilly on female book collectors has a short section on de Berrry's collection and notes, "La bibliothèque de Rosny couvre tous les champs de la connaissance : théologie, jurisprudence, sciences et Arts, Belles-Lettres, Histoire. En 1837, la bibliothèque compte au total 8 000 volumes, selon le Catalogue de la riche bibliothèque de Rosny, première des deux ventes de sa bibliothèque que Marie-Caroline, victime des circonstances, va être obligée de réaliser. La duchesse fait relier ses ouvrages chez Simier en sept couleurs : bleu, rouge, vert pomme, vert olive, citron, lilas et violet. Un choix purement esthétique contrairement à certaines pratiques du moment associant les couleurs à des disciplines. Choix des éditions, beauté des exemplaires et des éléments variés qui les enrichissent, provenances prestigieuses et surtout beauté de la reliure distinguent ses livres. Les femmes auteurs semblent avoir été un thème de prédilection pour la duchesse et sa collection rassemble toutes les grandes femmes de lettres." Perhaps this copy of an Alamanacco, in red morocco, has both aesthetic and semantic signifiers. Philip Manself: "The Duchesse de Berry and the Aesthetics of Royalism: Dynastic Collecting in Nineteenth-Century France" in Susan Bracken, Andrea M. Galdy and Adriana Turpin editors, Women Patrons and Collectors (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012).