Alciati, Emblemes d'Alciat, Lyon, 1549, brown morocco gilt with monogram of Thomas Mahieu

ALCIATI, ANDREA. Emblemes d'Alciat, de nouveau Translatez en François vers pour vers iouxte les Latins. Ordonnez en lieux communs, avec briefves expositions, & Figures nouvelles appropriées aux derniers Emblemes. Lyon: (Macé Bonhomme for) Guillaume Rouillé, 1549

This is the first Alciati edition to contain a commentary, written by the translator, Barthélemy Aneau, who also established the order of the emblems. The woodcuts are copies of those made by Bernard Salomon for the 1547 Jean de Tournes edition. The text has been expanded from the Aldine edition of 1546 (Bibliotheca Brookeriana, The Aldine Collection A-C, 12 October 2023, lot 106).

Variants of this edition are recorded (see Adams, Rawles & Saunders): this copy has the text beginning "L'enfant" on A8r and the reset text on M1v. The title-page imprint is recorded with either Bonhomme or Rouillé's name, as here.

In a binding with the complex monogram of Thomas Mahieu's later bindings, "Inimici mei mea michi non me michi"; the repairs and alterations to the binding prevent a firm attribution of the book to Mahieu's library. Davis Gift 99 is a binding made in Lyon in the late 1560s, which has a similar interlaced border on a pointillé ground with a blank central cartouche. G.D. Hobson stated that no Mahieu binding is found on a French book (p. 53).

For more details of Mahieu bindings, see Bibliotheca Brookeriana I, 11 October 2023, lot 40, and The Aldine Collection A-C, 12 October 2023, lots 258 and 331; lot 258 was in a similar pointillé style binding. Anthony Hobson's updated census of Mahieu bindings, "Les livres reliés pour Thomas Mahieu: I", Bulletin du Bibliophile (2004), 239-270, lists this binding as number 4, under the bindings "reliés à grand décor".

8vo (191 x 122 mm). Roman type. Collation: A-R⁸: 136 leaves. Title within woodcut border, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, most pages within a woodcut border, woodcut illustrations attributed to Pierre Eskrich. (Occasional light soiling, a few small stains.)

Binding: French brown morocco richly gilt (196 x 127 mm), a wide outer interlaced frame on a pointillé ground (cut out and neatly pasted on), central cartouche with the title lettered in gilt on a plain ground on upper cover, lower cover with Mahieu's monogram (both central panels also cut out and pasted on), flat spine gilt to a small gilt and black-painted crescent pattern, edges gilt and gauffered. (Ends of spine and corners repaired.)

Provenance: [Thomas Mahieu (ca 1515/1527-after 1588), monogram on lower cover] — Delamotte, inscription on inside rear flyleaf — Ex libris Dreuzy, note in biro on flyleaf — Calmels Chambre Cohen, sale, Paris, 22 January 2003, lot 3. Acquisition: Purchased in 2012 from Librairie Camille Sourget, Paris. References: Adams, Rawles & Saunders F.026; Green, Alciati 38; Landwehr, Romanic Emblem Books 43; Mortimer, Harvard French 15; USTC 6230