The Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections at Brandeis has the distinction of holding an example of the earliest known bookplate, which comes from the collection of Brother Hildebrand Hilpbrand Brandenburg of Biberach. Scholars date the bookplate to the s, and it must have been completed by , at which time Hildebrand, a Carthusian monk, donated his collection, accompanied by these bookplates, to his monastery in Buxheim.
Even after the advent of printing and the beginning of mass production of books in the latter part of the 15th century, the possession of large libraries long remained the privilege of the elite. Thus bookplates, which signified the ownership of volumes or functioned as gift plates to record the giver of a large donation, tended to be heavily armorial in nature, constructed around the family crests of their noble owners.
This phenomenon is akin to the production of armorial bindings, in which the books owned by a particular noble family would all be bound in identical leather, with the arms of the owner elaborately blazoned on the cover of each volume.
Platinae cremonensis, de vitis ac gestis summorum Coloniae, Bookplates provide a unique resource for scholars, as they enable them to trace the history of particular volumes as well as map the transmission of texts in the early days of printing. The history of the ownership of a book, known as its provenance, often provides information as to who may have been reading what books, and has even enabled the intellectual reconstruction of famous libraries, both of individuals and institutions.
It can be invaluable for a scholar to piece together the resources a particular author, scientist or historian had at his or her disposal when composing his or her own work, and a bookplate can be an important tool in this process.
