Longueil, Orationes, Florence, Heirs of Giunta, 1524, Venetian black morocco, ca. 1530, by the Mendoza binder, Antoine de Révilliasc's copy

LONGUEIL, CHRISTOPHE DE. Orationes duae pro defensione sua in crimen lesae maiestatis, longe exactiori quàm ante iudicio perscriptae, ac nunc primum ex ipsius authoris sententia in lucem editae. Oratio una ad Luterianos. Eiusdem epistolarum libri quatuor. Epistolarum Bembi et Sadoleti liber unus. Longolij uita perdocte quidem atque eleganter ab ipsius amicissimo quodam exarata. Florence: Heirs of Filippo I Giunta, December 1524

FIRST EDITION, posthumously printed, of the works of the Flemish humanist, whose prose was considered a paragon of Ciceronian Latin. He spent his adult years in Italy, dying in Padua at the age of 34. The anonymous Vita of this edition was long ascribed to Reginald Pole, but the attribution has been placed in doubt.

The presumed first owner of this book, Antoine de Révilliasc, who styled his ownership with the “et amicorum” device, was promoted doctor of canon law at Bologna on 22 February 1533. He placed the same inscription, but dated 1535, in a Breviarium super Codice ([Lyon:] Nicolaus Philippi Pistoris and Marcus Reinhart, 13 November 1480), sold by Christie’s New York, 5 December 2006, lot 207. He became Prieur & Seigneur d’Aspres et de Montbrand 1541-1554 (Nicole Bingen, '"Aux escholles d'outre-monts": étudiants de langue française dans les universités italiennes'. Geneva 2018, pp. 2192-2193).

4to (209 x 138 mm). Italic type, 39 lines plus headline. Collation: a-u⁸ x⁴: 163 leaves. Woodcut Giunta device on title-page. (Title spotted with repairs to blank margins, intermittent light spotting, a few repairs to blank margins, rust hole to blank margins of t7-8, lacking final blank).

Binding: Contemporary Venetian black morocco (220 x 148 mm), by the Mendoza binder ca. 1530, gilt and blind fillet borders, gilt rosette at outer corners, gilt leaf at corners of central compartment, further embellished with gilt knotwork tools and title at top LONGOLII ORATION, traces of four pairs of ties, spine blind tooled in compartments, edges stained blue. (Extremities somewhat rubbed, wear to head of spine, spine slightly dry and cracked, blue edges faded, later endpapers).

Provenance: Antoine de Révilliasc, inscription, "Ex libris Antonii à Revilliasco & amicorum 1533," on title-page — unidentified owner, occasional early underlining and numbering of paragraphs — Audap Godeau Solanet & Christian Galantaris, Paris, 19 November 1984, lot 119 (illustrated) — Librairie Lardanchet, Paris 1993, item 69 (FF 25,000). Acquisition: Purchased from Librairie Lardanchet, Paris, 1995. References: Renouard XLVIII/73; Edit16 28779; USTC 838568; Decia & Delfiol p. 126 no. 181; cf. George B. Parks, “Did Pole Write the Vita Longolii?,” Renaissance Quarterly 26 (3), 1973, pp. 274-285)