Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library Part VII

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1808. Plutarchus, La touché naifve pour esprouver lamy, Paris, 1537, contemporary Parisian calf gilt for Jean de Gagny.

Plutarchus, La touché naifve pour esprouver lamy, Paris, 1537, contemporary Parisian calf gilt for Jean de Gagny

Estimate

12,000 - 18,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

PLUTARCHUS. La touché naifve, pour esprouver lamy, et le flateur, inventee par Plutarque, taillee par Erasme, et mise a lusage Francois, par noble homme frère Antoine du Saix commandeur de Bourg avec lart, de soy ayder, et par bon moyen faire son proffict de ses ennemys. Paris, Simon de Colines, 1537


A CONTEMPORARY PARISIAN CALF BINDING FOR JEAN DE GAGNY, ONE OF THE FIRST LECTEURS ROYAUX, PRINTER, AND LIBRARIAN OF FRANCIS I. Jean de Gagny was a scholar of considerable esteem, who ended up as Chancellor of the University of Paris. His status as "un bibliophile passioné" was recognised by Renouard, but only recently gained sustained scholarly attention from André Jammes and Nicholas Barker, who discuss the present volume. de Gagny's bookish activities extended beyond collecting and scholarship: he "founded his own printing-house for which he had special type manufactured... imported books from the Aldine Press... had his works written in exquisite calligraphy for the King, and... employed the best printers and binders of his time" (Jammes and Barker, 2010, p. 406). There are close similarities between the design of the present binding and that of the author's own copy of the same work (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale as part of the Rothschild Collection), with both sharing "a simple design of fillet panels, gilt and blind, combining a rectangle and lozenge, with inscriptions" (Ibid., p. 442). Jammes and Barker attribute the binding to the Fleur-de-lis Binder on account of the gilt fleurons, and speculate that the volume may have been a gift from author to de Gagny on the basis of shared tastes and literary interests.

4to (228 x 146 mm). Roman and italic type, 28 lines plus headline. collation: a-g8 h4 i6: 66 leaves. Title-page with elaborate woodcut border, further woodcut borders on a2r and g6r, woodcut initials. (Title-page remounted and with neat tissue repairs to verso, very slight marginal worming running from title-page throughout textblock, slight marginal dampstaining.)


binding: Contemporary Parisian polished brown calf for Jean de Gagny (232 x 151 mm), possibly by the Fleur-de-lis binder, rectangular frame composed of 2 gilt fillets each flanked by a blind fillet, gilt fleurons at outer corners, in central panel a lozenge composed as rectangular frame and touching its mid-points containing on the upper cover the work's title within the lozenge, and "MON SEUL BIEN. IG" on the lower cover, inside the lozenge gilt ornament with large bud and leaf tool tête-bêche, small leaf above and below, traces of 2 pairs of ties, gilt edges. (Rebacked, pastedowns and endleaves renewed.)


provenance: Jean de Gagny (c.1490-1549), his initials "I.G." stamped in gilt to lower cover—Charles Labbé de Monvéron (1582-1657), legal scholar, title-page with ownership inscription ("CAROLUS LABBÉ")—Louis Eugène Jean Birkigt (b. 1903), sale, Librarie André Cottet, Geneva, 10 November 1967, lot 69 (illustrated, the binding attributed to Pierre Estienne Roffet). acquisition: Purchased in 2007 from Librairie Paul Jammes, Paris. references: USTC 24250; BP16 108635; André Jammes, "Un bibliophile à découvrir, Jean de Gagny" in Bulletin du Bibliophile (1996) pp.35-81 and Pls. 16-17; André Jammes and Nicolas Barker, "Jean de Gagny: A Bibliophile Re-Discovered", The Library, 7th series, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 2010), pp. 405-446, the present volume listed as item 14 in census of volumes bound for de Gagny, and reproduced on pp. 440-441 (figs 16-17); P. Renouard, "Le livre des sept paroles 1528", Byblis 8 (1929), pp. 60–65

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