The marbled endpaper.

A rare mid-18th-century embroidered binding was recently discovered at the National Library in Valletta. It is a welcome addition to the sizeable collection of fine bindings in the same library, listed in the catalogue titled Fine Bindings from the National Library of Malta and the Magistral Palace Library and Archives in Rome, published in Malta in 1999.

The volume is listed in Cesare Vassallo’s Catalogo dei codici e dei manoscritti inediti che si conservano nella Pubblica Biblioteca di Malta (1856), and he describes it as “un bel manoscritto in 4to”.

The volume, which bears the location Lib.216, is a 47-page manuscript written in beautiful script. It transcribes talks given by Abate Don Federigo Pappacoda about the State cult of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth. The manuscript describes the six vestal virgins who tended the perpetual fire in the Temple of Vesta in Rome, and who officiated at the public worship of Vesta, or the Vestalia, which fell between June 7 and 15. It was also customary to keep the perpetual fire of Vesta at the entrance hall of each household, hence the origin of the word ‘vestibule’ for the entrance hall or lobby of a house.

Federigo Pappacoda was a Neapolitan knight who, together with the Duke of Medina Celi, the penultimate Spanish viceroy of the reign of Naples, established an academy of arts on the model of the academies established by King Louis XIV of France. They both can best be described as maecenates – lovers and patrons of the arts, who had brought back to Naples the lustre of the humanities.

It is an emblematic binding, meaning that the decoration of the book cover reflects its contents, and is covered in red silk woven with silver-gilt thread over pasteboard

The embroidered binding, which is contemporary with the manuscript, is sewn on four recessed hemp cords, and the endpapers are a double-comb pattern marbled paper. The edges of the book are gilt. The two fore-edge ties and the headbands, which were in red and yellow silk thread, are missing. It is an emblematic binding, meaning that the decoration of the book cover reflects its contents, and is covered in red silk woven with silver-gilt thread over pasteboard. It is not very common to find emblematic bindings of the period. Binders used to decorate their bindings usually featured stylised foliage and floral decorative elements.

The background of the upper and lower cover, which is framed in a laid, silver-gilt plait, is filled with stylised flowers couched and stitched in silver-gilt purl. Purl is cord made from twisted gold or silver wire.

Signature of Abate Don Federigo Pappacoda.

At the centre of the front cover is the goddess Vesta in the symbol of a cauldron with the everlasting domestic fire circled by the words: ciò che più Sagro vidi a voi consagro, meaning: “what I have seen most sacred in you, I set apart as sacred”. On the back cover there is the coat of arms of Medina Celi, also couched and stitched in silver-gilt purl.

Title page in vellum of the manuscript.

The paper manuscript, which has a vellum title-page, is framed within a gilt border flanked on both sides by a single black ink fillet. The full title is Di Vesta e delle Sacerdotesse Vestali – Discorsi dell’Abate D. Federigo Pappacoda Recitati nell’Accademia dell’Ecc. Sig. Duca di Medina Celi Vice-Re di Napoli. The book is dedicated to Her Excellency Donna Maria Giron de La Nieve, Duchess of Medina Celi and Queen of Naples. The initials of the capital letters and the name Donna Maria Giron de La Nieve, are gilt. No date is given, but from empirical evidence, it is a mid-18th-century manuscript.

It has not yet been possible to establish the manuscript’s origins but it may have formed part of a collection of books that belonged to a Knight of Malta and which passed to the Order on his demise.

Since the material with which the book is covered is silk, and the embroidery is so delicate, it was decided to manufacture a protective box for the book, which has been placed with the other fine bindings in the National Library’s rare book collection.

Joseph Schirò is a paper conservator and honorary secretary of the Malta Map Society.