The exhibition on the collection of royal bound volumes belonging to Spain's National Heritage, Great Bindings in the Royal Collections, will bring together the extraordinary treasure trove of bound volumes preserved at the Royal Palace Library and in the Libraries of the Monasteries of El Escorial, Las Huelgas, Las Descalzas and La Encarnación for the very first time, works that make up one of the world's finest collections with regard to the art of binding.
These royal bound volumes reflect the endeavours of the corresponding craftsmen to achieve an ideal in which technical expertise is combined with artistic splendour. As truly exclusive creations, these works can be enjoyed as much for their appeal to the touch as for the visual delights they offer. Nevertheless, their cultural significance goes beyond the realm of luxury. Their meaning resides in their ceremonial and representative function, in their endeavour to achieve the category required for an institutional work, in their ability to endow cultural creation with a sense of excellence and long-lasting appeal, and in their desire to pay homage to the monarch in whose hands they were destined to rest. However, in Court, in the lounges of the aristocracy and in erudite circles, these bound volumes also sought to generate that special aura that identifies a true cultural event, one that is forever present throughout the march of History.
This exhibition, which is due to take place in April 2012, will bring together two hundred and fifty bound volumes selected from Spain's National Heritage collections, making up an exceptional and unrepeatable exhibition of these marvellous works of art. These are works that were created for the monarch's own use, beginning in the days of Charles V and Philip II, offering us a marvellous insight into the Royal Libraries of the House of Hapsburg and the House of Bourbon. We also come across items from a number of extraordinary complete collections that were treasured by conspicuous patrons and ending up by enriching the King's library, thus endowing the Crown with the enormous intellectual prestige enjoyed by their owners for having gathered together such works.
In Royal Hands, the book that is due to be published to mark the staging of the exhibition will bring together this catalogue of works, whose details can be appreciated through a series of photographs taken specially for the occasion. Various international experts have been asked to contribute to the publication. These essays correspond to an ambitious academic programme that has been designed for this monographic publication by the curator of the exhibition, Maria Luisa López-Vidriero, the Head of the Royal Library, with a view to providing a theoretical reflection regarding the event, as well as a material description that might serve as a basis for a constructive debate concerning the significance and purpose of royal binding within the cultural history of Europe. This opportunity to bring together this excellent series of bound creations in a carefully-produced edition, complemented by the expert analysis of a prestigious group of experts, will give rise to a fundamental publication regarding the art of binding, its history and its cultural significance.
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