Sacred iconography in notarial protocols

Notaries are required to bind the deeds stipulated in one year in one or more volumes, the protocols.

In binding, the cover, often made of parchment, is folded and glued to the inside of the plate (rigid support, in our case cardboard) and the folds thus made are hidden by gluing a sheet of paper, the backing, on top.

Some notaries use prints made with the engraving technique, mostly with a burin, as a backing.

The prints found are almost exclusively of a religious nature and this suggests that more than an aesthetic motivation behind the choice there was the desire to place one's activity as a notary under the protection/guidance of the saint.

This is not so strange if we consider that until the 19th century the notarial instrument always began with the invocatio: the most widespread invocation was In Christi nome amen.