Dan, Le tresor des merveilles, Paris, 1642, contemporary tan calf, Foucault-Macclesfield copy

DAN, PIERRE. Le Tresor des merveilles de la Maison royale de Fontainebleau, Contenant la description de son antiquité, de sa fondation, de ses bastimens, de ses rares Peintures, Tableaux, Emblemes, & Devises; de ses Jardins, de ses Fontaines, & autres singularitez qui s'y voyent. Ensemble les traictez de paix, les Assemblées, les Conferences, les Entrées Royales, les Naissances, & Ceremonies de Baptesme de quelques Enfans de France; les Mariages, les Tournoys, & autres magnificences, qui s'y sont faictes jusques à présent. Paris: Sébastien Cramoisy, 1642

THE FOUCAULT-MACCLESFIELD COPY ON LARGE PAPER. First edition of the earliest book about Fontainebleau, produced during the reign of Louis XIII, and thus serves as an important record of the palace before the major changes to the park and gardens introduced by Louis XIV, and the extensive alterations of Louis XV and Louis XVI. The author, Father Superior of the Couvent de la Sainte Trinité which Saint Louis had founded at Fontainebleau in 1259, dedicates his work to François Sublet de Noyers, the influential Surintendant des Bâtiments. He transcribes or translates exhaustively from documents in the royal archives, among them a record of the Mona Lisa as bought by François I for the sum of “12 mille francs” (pp. 135-36), and he gives the earliest first-hand account of the king’s Galerie after its creation.

Eight of the nine illustrations are of the fountains after designs by Tommaso Francini, the ninth is a bird's eye view of the palace and gardens.

Folio (369 x 245 mm). Roman and Italic type, 37 lines plus headline. Collation: ã⁴ ẽ⁴ ĩ⁴ õ⁴ ũ⁴ ãã² A-Z⁴ Aa-Vu⁴ Xx⁶: 200 leaves. Title-page printed in red and black with engraved printer's device, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces, 9 full-page engravings by Bosse and Masne after Francini. (Small tear in front free endpaper, small tear to foot of Q4, slight loss of lower corner of E3.)

Binding: Contemporary French tan calf (375 x 260 mm), double gilt fillet border, spine gilt in compartments, red sprinkled edges. (Ends of spine slightly chipped, spine slightly faded, extremities very slightly rubbed.)

Provenance: Julien Brodeau, inscription on flyleaf with the date September 1642 (listed in the posthumous inventory of his library; Yves Le Guillou, Topographie d'une bibliothèque: les livres de Julien Brodeau, avocat au Parlement de Paris, doctoral thesis, submitted 2019) — Nicolas-Joseph Foucault (1642-1723), armorial bookplate — library of the Earl of Macclesfield, armorial bookplate dated 1860 and armorial stamp in blind at the head of first 2 leaves, sale, Sotheby's, 2 October 2008, lot 4424. Acquisition: Purchased in 2010 from Hugh Pagan Ltd, Brockenhurst. References: USTC 6039662, Landwehr, Romanic Emblem Books 251; Adams, Rawles and Saunders F.205