Book monument imprint: Identifying via foreign information resources

Abstract

The author reviews foreign science publication, websites, digital databases, catalogs and methods to be used to specify imprints of book monuments and their history as exemplified by 16-th century collection of Russian Academy of Arts Library. The collection comprises over 60 books published in Western Europe; with the special attention to the collection in architecture, in particular books published by Sebastiano Serlio (1475 – c. 1554). To attribute the publications, the catalogs of foreign museums and libraries, bibliographic, fulltext, factographic and objectographic databases in the art market, e. g. ArtPrice, MutualArt, Invaluable, were used to reveal various guides in 16-th century architecture, catalogs of private collections, and auction sale catalogs. The author discusses the methods to use the identified sources to attribute book monuments, as exemplified by Sebastiano Serlio’s books in architecture, and to investigate into this area further.