Garnier, Les tragedies, Rouen, 1599, contemporary Parisian russet morocco gilt for Bartolomeo Cenami
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
GARNIER, ROBERT. Les tragedies de Robert Garnier conseiller dv roy, Lieutenant general criminel au siege Presidial & Seneschaussee du Maine. Rouen: Raphaël du Petit Val, 1599
COLLECTED EDITION OF THE TRAGEDIES OF ROBERT GARNIER, HANDSOMELY BOUND FOR BARTOLOMEO CENAMI. For a full list of Cenami bindings, see Bibliotheca Brookeriana I, 11 October 2023, lot 41; this is number 9 in the census of bindings. For further information, and another volume bound for Cenami in the present sale, see lot 1614 (Burchiello).
The present volume was at one point owned by Edward Davies Davenport (1778-1847), whose library also contained a 1597 edition of Ronsard bound in an identically tooled Cenami binding.
Robert Garnier was perhaps the greatest French tragic poet of the Renaissance, and his plays exerted a not inconsiderable influence on Elizabethan dramatists. For instance, his 1578 play Marc-Antoine was translated by the Countess of Pembroke as The Tragedie of Antonie, and Samuel Daniel's Tragedie of Cleopatra also followed Garnier's neo-Senecan model.
12mo (148 x 82 mm). Italic type, with some roman and Greek type, 34 lines plus headline. collation: A-Z12 Aa-Dd12 (Dd12 blank): 324 leaves. Woodcut devices to title-page and verso of final text leaf, woodcut head-pieces and initials, ruled in red throughout. (Slight worming to endleaves and lower margin of A2.)
binding: Parisian binding (152 x 88 mm), c. 1599, for Cenami, russet morocco over wooden boards, gold tooled, 3 fillets around sides, frame composed of 3 fillets, open fleuron at outer angles, in centre wreath composed of laurel, and another front, containing rampant lion, traces of 2 pairs of red silk ties, flat spine, 6 false bands composed of 4 fillets, title in second compartment, rampant lion in other, and acorn and oak leaf in others, edges gilt. (Worming to upper pastedown.)
provenance: Cenami, family library, probably Bartolomeo (Barthélémy) Cenami (1556-1611), with gilt arms to covers—Edward Davies Davenport (1778-1847), of Capesthorne, Chelford, Cheshire, armorial bookplate, by descent to— William Bromley-Davenport (1821-1884), his nephew, his sale, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, London, 10-11 May 1907, lot 154, £3 5s to J. & J. Leighton, London—Librairie Damascène Morgand, Paris, Bulletin, Nouvelle série - No. 17, novembre 1913 (Paris 1913), item 250—André-Michel Suquet (1907-1991)—Maurice Rheims, R.-G. Laurin, P. Rheims & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Paris, 20-21 March 1969, lot 7—Georges Heilbrun, Paris, Catalogue 36: Livres ayant appartenu à des amateurs célèbres (Paris 1971), item 18. acquisition: Purchased in 2001 from Librairie Lardanchet, Paris. references: USTC 48684 (listing five institutional copies); for the binding, cf. Balsamo, “Les reliures d’un Italien de la Cour de Henri IV” in Bulletin du Bibliophile (1991), pp. 412–415
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