Billy, Exhortation au peuple francois, Paris, 1584, contemporary Parisian limp vellum gilt with fore-edge flaps

BILLY, JEAN DE. Exhortation au peuple françois pour exercer les oeuvres de misericorde envers les pauvres. Paris: Guillaume Chaudière, 1584

A RARE WORK IN A CONTEMPORARY PARISIAN VELLUM BINDING. Jean de Billy (1530-1580) was prior of the charterhouse of Notre-Dame de Bonne-Espérance, near the castle at Gaillon in Northern France. USTC lists two institutional copies of this volume.

8vo (168 x 106 mm). Roman and italic type, 22 to 33 lines plus headline. Collation: ã⁸ A-Y⁸: 184 leaves. Woodcut arms on title-page, woodcut initials and head- and tailpieces, ruled in red. (Slight browning and spotting.)

Binding: Contemporary Parisian ivory limp vellum (175 x 112 mm), double gilt fillet border, gilt foliage cornerpieces with angel heads with wings, central gilt laurel wreath, fore-edge flaps, flat spine with 6 false bands formed by egg and dart roll, azured quadrelobes in compartments, 2 pairs of chamois ties, edges gilt. (Binding slightly rubbed at extremities.)

Provenance: Nicolas Rauch, Geneva, 2 March 1953, lot 83 (binding illustrated and attributed to Nicolas Ève)—Librairie Patrick et Élisabeth Sourget, Catalogue 6: Manuscrits enluminés et livres précieux (Chartres 1989), item 54. Acquisition: Purchased in 1990 from Librairie Sourget, Chartres. References: USTC 34027 (listing institutional copies only at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal and the Bibliothèque nationale de France)