The Album Amicorum of Bishop Felicianus Ninguarda, illuminated manuscript on paper [Germany, late sixteenth century]

38 leaves (now separate, perhaps cut from an album), each approximately 120mm. by 75mm., with elaborately coloured and illuminated coat-of-arms with helms and pennants (4 leaves with arms on both sides), and notes in a number of cursive and ornamental bookhands, recording the names of the individuals with short mottos (such as "vinum laetificat cor hominis", 'wine gladdens a man's heart') and dates between 1567 and 1579 (some perhaps that of the bishop himself, and others in the hands of the individuals concerned), one leaf with corner cut away, some bumps and small stains to edges of pages, else good, with accompanying scholarly notes and correspondence from the Morgan Library and Theodore C. Petersen (evidently the professor of St. Paul's College, Catholic University of America, Washington, who lived 1883-1966) to a previous owner, D.F. Baxter of San Francisco

Made for Felicianus Ninguarda (1524-95), vicar-general of the Dominican order, who held the chair of theology at Vienna, the bishoprics of Scala and Como, the governorship of the bishopric of Regensberg and finally the office of papal nuncio to Germany and Switzerland. He was a member of the inner circle of Pope Gregory XIII and a stalwart member of the Counter Reformation in Germany and Bohemia. These leaves demonstrate the wealth of his political allies amongst the aristocracy of the region, including Charles, archduke of Austria, Frederick, duke of Oettingen, Bishop Hector of Passau, Benedict, abbot of St. Peter's, Salzburg, Ladislaus, head of the Lobkowitz family, and Raimond Fugger of the Augsberg banking dynasty. The accompanying signatures and notes to all these are evidently autograph.