Raphael de Mercatellis

Raphael de Mercatellis, also known as Raphael of Burgundy, was a church official, imperial counsellor and bibliophile. He was the illegitimate son of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy and a woman of Venetian origins, the wife of a merchant. He was born in Bruges. While pursuing a career within the Catholic church, and particularly after becoming abbot of Saint Bavo's Abbey in Ghent, he assembled a collection of lavish illuminated and decorated manuscripts. The library he created is of historical importance as the earliest library in the Low Countries containing a significant number of Renaissance humanist books. Sixty-five books from his library have been traced to collections worldwide, making it an unusually intact medieval book collection attributable to a single owner.