Book Review
Noble Fragments
by Michael Visontay
At home, my bookshelves abound with volumes regarding art collectors and collections, and book collectors, mostly relating to the research and recovery of looted and dispersed objects. I love reading about the rich and complex histories of collectors of paintings, illuminated manuscripts and other art treasures. So it was really only natural that I would want to review this book from journalist Michael Visontay.
For Visontay, what began seemingly as a fairly simple lockdown activity of going through old family papers ended up leading to a months-long investigation into the rare-book trade. He found himself focusing on one particular individual, Gabriel Wells, whose life, as Visontay discovered, intersects with his own family history. Wells was a self-made rare-books dealer who, in the 1920s, dissembled a volume of the Gutenberg Bible, Europe’s earliest book printed using movable metal type, and subsequently onsold the various biblical chapters and books to collectors as ‘Noble Fragments’. In reading this book, we accompany Visontay on his journey down the rabbit-hole of discovery, and can fully appreciate the steep learning curve he embarked upon as he investigated Wells and the collectors of the scattered Noble Fragments.
This book offers readers a wonderful look into this unique and somewhat arcane world, and the dealers, scholars, and collectors of rare books and incunables who populate it. For Visontay, this exercise was also deeply personal, providing a particular lens with which to explore his own complicated family history and Holocaust survival. Part-memoir, part-art history investigation, Noble Fragments will delight readers of books such as those by Christopher de Hamel, but also readers who love stories of hope and resilience.
