Habiti delle donne veneziane (Venice, 1610)
Catalogus librorum (…) Petri de Graaf (…), p. 21, no. 430 (Libri Miscellanei in Folio)
This book stands out in Pieter’s auction catalogue as it is clearly intended for a female audience. After the engraved frontispiece depicting the Rialto bridge and a map of the Venetian Lagoon, we find 19 engravings display Venetian women (both courtesans and respectable women) in beautiful dresses, adorned by the fashionable Venetian lace. Two plates are dedicated to wedding ceremonies.
As this book is not directly mentioned in Pieter’s almanacs or in other primary sources, it is only possible to speculate who might have brought it into the family collection. A likely candidate is Pieter’s maternal grandfather, Pieter Jansz Hooft (1575–1636). Pieter Jansz was in Padua in July 1612, where he joined the university as a law student. Due to his advanced age and proficiency in Latin, he was promptly appointed as the ‘syndicus’ (secretary) of the Natio Germanica Iuristarum. He gave the Oratio Congratulatoria on 11 September 1612, in the presence of the Venetian Doge Marcantonio Memmo, which was later published in 1613. Pieter Jansz’s stay in Padua was brief, lasting no longer than two full semesters, as he earned his doctorate in Canon and Civil Law in Heidelberg on 15 July 1613. Could this book have been a present for Gertruid Overlander (1577–1653) who he married upon his return in Amsterdam in 1614?
Read the description of this book and browse through a few illustrations on the MET museum website
A copy preserved in the Civic library of Bassano del Grappa is presented in this video (in Italian)
USTC record: 4039324
Consult and download the annotated transcription of Pieter de Graeff's book auction catalogue here.
References:
C. Piccoli, Pieter de Graeff (1638-1707) and his treffelyke bibliotheek: Exploring and reconstructing an early modern private library as a book collection and as a physical space (Leiden: Brill, 2025).
Written by Chiara Piccoli