Des Monstiers, Des estats et maisons plus illustres, Paris, 1549, black morocco gilt by the Salel Binder

DES MONSTIERS, JEAN. Des estats et maisons plus illustres de la chrestiente. Paris: Vincent Sertenas for Gilles Corrozet, 1549

RARE CORROZET PRINTING OF THIS LIST OF POPES, KINGS OF FRANCE AND EMPERORS OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE IN A FINE BINDING BY THE SALEL BINDER.

Jean Des Monstiers (1514-1569) was a French Catholic priest and Bishop of Bayonne between 1551 and 1565. He was also a diplomat, a historiographer and a translator. USTC lists 4 institutional copies of this work.

This binding can be attributed to the Salel Binder. The bindings produced by this Parisian workshop were often black or green morocco, with gilt tooling and gilt edges, and feature characteristic systematic frames, formed of a repeated fleuron, as the present volume does (Laffitte and Le Bars, Reliures royales de la Renaissance, p. 53). The bud tool at the corners, where unchanged by restoration, appear identical to those found on no. 7 in Nixon’s Sixteenth-century Gold-tooled Bookbindings, attributed to the Fontainebleau Binder. Compare also a binding on the 1549 entry of Henri II in Paris attributed to the Salel Binder by Vérène de Diesbach-Soultrait, Bibliothèque Jean Bonna. Six siècles de littérature française. XVIe siècle (Geneva & Paris 2017), I, no. 122

The Salel Binder, active from around 1540, was first known as the "Fontainebleau Binder", as he was responsible for a number of bookbindings for the royal library at Fontainebleau. However, he had many other clients, most of whom remain anonymous, like the owner of the present volume. He was later renamed the "Salel Binder" after a series of manuscripts dedicated to the king by Hugues Salel. This would be a later binding from the workshop, as the majority of extant bookbindings were produced between 1540 and 1545.