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Gemini For Museums

Gemini For Museums: Researching An Early 20th Century Rubber Ownership Stamp In A 1616 Book

Gemini has proven exceptionally powerful at helping us reconstruct the provenance of many of our works through bookplates and ownership stamps. This interesting example was flagged as a potential institutional ownership stamp due to its early 20th-century rubber stamp form in a 1616 book and repeated stamping in multiple locations throughout the work, suggestive of institutional workflows. Here, Gemini traces the the stamp to a specific private collection known to have stamped its books in this way and even helped us locate other works in private sales and auction with the same stamp.

Tell me about that ownership stamp in detail.

The purple ink impression on the left margin of the dedication leaf is the early 20th-century ownership stamp of the Biblioteca Salomone (BIBLIOTECA SALOMONE / NICOSIA), the historic noble library of the Barons Salomone in Nicosia, Sicily. Here it marks a 1616 Venice edition of Jesuit theologian Martín Del Rio’s famous treatise on witchcraft and demonology, Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex (Venetiis, apud Vincentium Florinum, MDCXVI).

Visual & Physical Details

  • Inscription & Hidden Lettering: The upper arched band reads BIBLIOTECA SALOMONE and the lower counter-curved band reads NICOSIA. At first glance the surname appears to read SALOMON, because the right edge of the stamp strikes directly over the dark woodcut arabesque headpiece, camouflaging the final E and the right-hand border within the black printer's ink.

  • Design & Medium: Struck in violet aniline ink from a vulcanized rubber handstamp (characteristic of Italian private libraries between roughly 1900 and 1930), the cartouche features a double-lined biconvex or "eye-shaped" ribbon frame with angled vertical ends and a blank almond-shaped center reserve. The lettering uses tall, condensed capitals, with two small horizontal fleuron flourishes flanking NICOSIA.

  • Bibliophilic Placement: Rather than defacing the two-color red-and-black title page, the owner placed the stamp on the second leaf—signature a2 recto, just below the heading of Fra Paolino Berti’s dedicatory epistle to Lorenzo Giustiniani. This was a deliberate, consistent habit of the Biblioteca Salomone: across surviving books from this collection, the title page was routinely left unmarked while stamps were applied to the second leaf, occasional inner leaves, and the final leaf.

Historical Provenance: The Barons Salomone of Nicosia

  • Sicily, Not Cyprus: A recurring mistake in international auction and rare-book catalogues is attributing this stamp to Nicosia, Cyprus. As the Italian spelling Biblioteca indicates, the library actually belonged to Palazzo Salomone (located on Via Fratelli Salomone beneath the cliff of SS. Salvatore) in Nicosia, Province of Enna—an ancient inland mountain town in central Sicily.

  • The Owners: The Barons Salomone (heirs as well to the baronial title of the di Falco family) were one of Nicosia’s foremost noble landowning families. Housed in their 18th-century palazzo, the private library held several thousand early printed volumes—including incunabula, 16th- and 17th-century scientific, theological, musical, and occult works, and the most important private archive of local Nicosia manuscripts.

  • 20th-Century Custodianship: The violet rubber stamp dates to the early 20th-century cataloging campaign of the family library, which also utilized a printed ex-libris bookplate dated 1911 reading Biblioteca di G. Salomone – Nicosia and occasionally a small G. S. monogram stamp. The G. corresponds to the family's recurring given names Guglielmo and Giuseppe—most notably Baron Dr. Giuseppe Salomone (1897–1986), a physician, mayor of Nicosia in the 1950s, member of the Associazione Italiana Biblioteche (AIB), and Honorary Bibliographic Inspector (Ispettore bibliografico onorario) for Nicosia in the 1960s, after whom the collection passed to his nephew Baron Guglielmo Salomone.

Dispersal & What Else to Look For in This Copy

After remaining intact in Palazzo Salomone for generations, significant portions of the early printed books from the Biblioteca Salomone began entering the antiquarian trade in the early 2020s (including multiple lots sold through Finarte in Rome in 2023–2024 and subsequent European dealers).

If you have access to the rest of this volume, check two other spots where the Salomone library routinely left companion marks:

  1. The front pastedown: Often bears (or shows ghosting from) the 1911 printed Biblioteca di G. Salomone – Nicosia bookplate or an early 20th-century paper shelf label.

  2. The final printed leaf (and select inner leaves such as page XXI): Frequently carries a matching violet BIBLIOTECA SALOMONE / NICOSIA impression or a smaller G. S. ownership stamp.