In recent years, early modern catalogues and inventories of private libraries have gained momentum as sources to study book ownership, book trade, and the dissemination of knowledge and ideas. At the same time, these sources offer limited insight into reading interests and habits: among other things, they hardly reveal what owners did with their books, and they reflect a mere ‘snapshot’ (xi) of the history of a collection.

The excellent study by Chiara Piccoli on Pieter de Graeff (1638-1707) and his ‘treffelyke bibliotheek’ shows how very close we can get to this reader from the past, and even his family members, when multiple types of sources are combined. For the Dutch Republic, a similar abundance of sources has survived most notably for Johannes Thysius (1622-1653) from Leiden, whose collection is much more famous and more thoroughly studied than Pieter de Graeff’s.

The monograph results from the author’s position as a postdoctoral researcher in the nwo-funded project ‘Virtual Interiors’ (2018-2022) and her involvement in the ‘PURE3D’ project at Maastricht University. This background explains Piccoli’s expertise and interest in virtually reconstructing the library as a physical space, one of the two main components of her study as announced in the subtitle Exploring and Reconstructing an Early Modern Private Library as a Book Collection and as a Physical Space. Yet, this book does much more. With a thorough analysis and a clear, vivid writing style, Piccoli brings to life the world, the impressive social and family networks, as well as the physical spaces in which the Amsterdam regent and Dutch East India Company (voc) director Pieter de Graeff moved, all viewed through the lens of his engagement with books.

Piccoli’s point of departure, as she explains in the prologue and the introductory first chapter, was the printed auction catalogue of Pieter’s treffelyke (‘beautiful’) library. The auction took place on 9 July 1709 and comprised over 2,300 titles. However, the catalogue does not take centre stage until chapter 5, and the other chapters, each focusing on a different source type, are at least as exciting. Throughout all chapters, Piccoli incorporates a range of archival documents to enrich and corroborate her findings. Particularly innovative is her 3D reconstruction of the book room in Pieter’s house. The visualisation offers a detailed impression of the interior of such a space, about which, apart from the rare surviving Bibliotheca Thysiana in Leiden, still relatively little is known.

The chapters on Pieter de Graeff’s books are preceded by a lengthy second chapter on the lives of Pieter and his direct family members, insofar as they are relevant to his book collection. Here, Piccoli elaborates how ‘the De Graeffs were connected, often through intricate kinship relations, to other renowned actors in the political, intellectual and artistic milieus of the time’ (76). Pieter de Graeff was Lord of Zuid-Polsbroek, Purmerland and Ilpendam, he was alderman of Amsterdam and director of the voc in its Amsterdam chamber. His family members all had influential positions in politics and commerce. His network of relatives and friends included, among many others, Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, Frans Banninck Cocq (famously depicted on Rembrandt’s Night Watch), and artists such as Govert Flinck and Romeyn de Hooghe. Considering Pieter de Graeff’s jaw-dropping network and status, Piccoli understandably expresses her surprise that his book collection has never been studied before. By first introducing the protagonists, Piccoli is later able to keep up the pace in subsequent chapters. On the downside, the reader is challenged to keep in mind a wealth of personal details and cross-references.

Chapter 3 focuses on the voc Groote Comptoir Almanachs that Pieter annotated every year between 1664 and 1707. Piccoli’s close reading of his notes sheds light on his daily business, as she constantly relates books to people: with whom did he exchange or discuss books, where did he go to have books bound, what was he interested in? She typifies De Graeff as a ‘practically oriented reader’ (121) rather than a bibliophile, who used his almanacs as a memory aid for transactions, planning, and correspondence.

Key results from the Virtual Interiors project are presented in chapter 4: drawing primarily on the probate inventories that have survived for all of Pieter’s four houses (in Amsterdam, Valkenburg, Velsen, and Ilpendam), Piccoli analyses which books were kept where, and for what purposes. With commendable care, she interprets terminology in the sources regarding spaces and furniture, such as comptoir, for which she draws on a seventeenth-century doll house to understand what such an office room would have looked like. She shows that most of Pieter’s books would have been kept in his Amsterdam house at Herengracht 573, especially in the boeken kamer or ‘book room’ located above the entrance hall.

The books listed in the auction catalogue are discussed in chapter 5, according to the catalogue’s thematic order. Based on the biographical details discussed in chapter 2, Piccoli offers many – sometimes perhaps overly speculative – suggestions on which books may have ended up in Pieter’s catalogue through other family members. More important than precisely who owned which book is her conclusion that Pieter’s collection was not brought together by a single individual but was an ‘accumulation spanning several generations’ (199).

One of the most spectacular parts of Piccoli’s study – visually as well as methodologically – is an annotated 3D reconstruction of Pieter’s book room at Herengracht 573. It seems a pity that it is only presented towards the end of the book, in chapter 6. By integrating sources, including the probate inventory, floor plans, Pieter’s and Jacoba’s testaments, and almanac annotations, Piccoli even manages to reconstruct such details as the relocation of an iron chest to an adjacent room to make room for a new bookcase. Piccoli’s calculation of the book room’s storage capacity shows that less than half of the books from the auction catalogue would have fit here. This finding substantiates her underlying point that auction catalogues are not necessarily reliable reflections of individual book collections. She suggests that a large number of books was kept in the house of Pieter’s parents at Herengracht 216. The chapters are followed by an epilogue that traces the afterlife and, sadly, the dispersal, of Pieter’s collection after the 1709 auction. One of the appendices offers an insightful breakdown of the collection according to language, format, and other characteristics of the works it contained, visualised in tables and charts.

In the epilogue, Piccoli admits that the ‘abundance of sources’ (231) regarding Pieter’s book collection is exceptional. However, her study amply demonstrates why auction catalogues need to be examined alongside other documentation such as probate inventories or testaments, even if the sources are ‘less copious’ (231) than in this case. The multitude of colour images throughout the book contributes to the vivid picture she paints. A more imaginative cover design, therefore, would have been fitting.

All in all, Piccoli brings forward strong ‘connections between books, events, and individuals’ (230). Pieter de Graeff’s book ownership and book use were interwoven with those of the people surrounding him: he received and inherited books, he borrowed and lent them, and many were present in spaces to which other household members or visitors would also have had access. Thus, Piccoli makes clear that a ‘private’ library was by no means limited to individual use.