Shepherds Calendar (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Bound with: Le Grand Calendrier et Compost des bergers, composé par le berger de la Grande Montagne, Avec le Compôt naturel reformé selon le retranchement des dix jours, par le Pape Gregoire III. Ensemble la manière comme se doit gouverner le Berger pour empêcher qu'aucun Sorciers ne fassent mourir leurs troupeaux, avec toutes choses nécessaire pour se régler en leur art. Troyes: Chez Jean-A. Garnier, Imp. Lib., No date [ca. 1776?] Quarto: II. 144 pp. A-S4. TWO RARE EDITIONS. Bound in contemporary tanned sheep, the boards framed by a triple gold rule, the spine ruled in gold and with rampant lions tooled in the compartments. The Privilege at end is granted to Pierre Garnier, and dated 21 May 1728. It gives also a list of his other publications. Unusually fine copies, printed on delicate paper, of these works, which are rarely found in such nice condition, bound in a strictly contemporary binding. The bottom line of the first t.p. ("avec permission") has been shaved off. In the second work, leaf N1 has marginal stains; the last few leaves are lightly foxed. The Dance of Death, "Les trois vifs et les Trois Morts", and the other accompanying texts are illustrated with 60 woodcuts of the Dance of Death copied from the original designs which appeared in the edition of the Danse Macabre of G. Marchant, 1490. That of the Moor on p. 32 may be a very close copy of the same subject in the Compost. Another version of it appears on p. 27 and is a very close copy of that in the Bradwardine (No. 64). N. B. - the two blocks of this subject appearing respectively on pp. 24 & 27 of the present Danse Macabre are not identical. Two works bound together, both examples of important literary genres dating to the late-Medieval and early-Renaissance periods. The "Danse macabre" is a pictorial cycle and poem first painted at a Paris cemetery about 1425. Woodcuts copied from the Paris fresco, along with the accompanying verses, were first printed by Guy Marchant at Paris in 1485. "Le Grand Calendrier", an illustrated almanac and calendar, was first printed in 1491 by Guy Marchant. The book, remarkable for both its text and its illustrations, was a kind of encyclopedia of meteorological, agricultural, hygienic, and moral knowledge. I. The Dance of Death One of the earliest examples of the pictorial cycle and poem known as the Danse Macabre was painted between August 1424 and Lent 1425 in the arcades of the Cimetière des Saints-Innocents (Cemetery of the Holy Innocents) in Paris. These arcades, constructed as charniers to house bones from earlier mass burials, were demolished in 1669, along with their frescoes. The images of the Danse in this book were directly inspired by the Paris Danse. Woodcuts of the Danse copied from the Paris fresco, along with the 67 verses that accompanied the images, were first printed by Guy Marchant at Paris in 1485, with woodcuts designed by Pierre le Rouge. While there were no women in the original Danse, in 1486 Marchant published an all-female version, "La Danse Macabre des Femmes". Later, Marchant united these two texts in the two-volume "Miroer Salutaire". While Marchant followed the sequence from the Cimetière des Saints-Innocents, he introduced numerous changes, adding new pictorial elements and verses, including 20 additional dancers and the woodcut of the four skeleton musicians. From the 16th through the 18th centuries, editions of the Danse appeared outside of Paris, printed -with various changes- by French provincial printers in Lyon, Rouen, and Troyes. Over the years, the woodblocks used to print the illustrations in the various Paris editions, worn or damaged from repeated use (and in some instances lost), were re-cut, with the images reproduced with varying degrees of fidelity to the originals. The printing history of the Danse in Troyes began in 1493, when Pierre le Rouge's woodblocks were acquired by his nephew, Nicolas le Rouge, who printed editions of the text into the 1530s. It is in Troyes that the woodcuts were first copied, and further changes were introduced by successive printers. In 1610, the Troyes printer Noël Moreau began printing editions of the Danse, using copies of the woodcuts from the Parisian edition published by Marchant, 1490. Moreau added several new images at this point, including the Black man blowing a horn and carrying a spear. According to Mortimer, Moreau also used several original 15th c. blocks in this edition, e.g. (p. 26) the Punishment of the Sin of Luxury (also used in the "Compost et kalendrier des bergiers" of 1497.) and one of the Occupations of the Months (May) from the "Compost" of 1499. In 1641, Nicolas Oudot's son (Nicolas Oudot II) printed a new edition, using Moreau's woodcuts. The last Oudot edition, with the text largely re-written, was printed by Nicolas II's son and widow in 1729, under the title "La Grande Danse Macabée (sic!)". It is this edition that would set the template for the next publishers, the Garniers. The dating of this edition +/- 1773 is based on the dates during which the publisher is known to have been active. A number of early bibliographers, following the printed privilege on the last page, dated this edition to 1728, and numerous cataloguing records have this date. However, the publisher to whom the privilege was granted, Pierre Garnier, died in 1738. Further, Jean-Antoine Garnier, who is named as publisher on the title page, was active between 1766 and 1773. Alexis Socard ("Livres Populaires de Troyes", 1864, p. 126-127) tells us that the Garniers continued to print the book up until 1820 with the same imprint and privilege. See also: Corrard de Breban, "Recherches sur l'établissement et l'exercice de l'imprimerie à Troyes", Paris, 1873, 4th ed., p.73-74. The additional texts: Already in the late 15th c., editions of the Danse had begun to include supplemental texts. Those included in this edition are: "Le débat du corps et de l'ame", "La complainte de l'ame damnée", "L'exhortation de bien vivre et de.

Couverture rigide. Condition: Très bon. 800x600 Normal 0 21 false false false FR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tableau Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} A beautiful extremely rare Parisian gothic edition of this lavishly illustrated work, which was extraordinarily successful in the 16th century. Brunet, II, 206; Bechtel, C-37. Not in Fairfax Murray or Harvard (French Books). The present edition is not dated, but it is known that Catherine Sergent, the widow of Jean Bonfons, worked as a bookseller-printer in Paris from 1568 (date of her husband's death) to 1572 (date of his death). The Calendar at the beginning of the volume is given for 1569. We can therefore place with precision the publication of the Calendar around 1569. The use of calendars spread from the 12th century onwards in books for clerical use, such as psalters, missals or martyrologies. At the end of the Middle Ages, the Books of Hours always begin with a calendar indicating the religious feasts. The calendars and compost of the shepherds are of a different nature. Published to "teach the science of the shepherds, which is the science of the soul, of the body, of the stars, of life and death", these books are in fact compilations for practical and moral use, intended for a secular public. They are inspired by medieval works such as "The Book of the Properties of Things" by Bartholomew the Englishman, the "Great Macabre Dances", the treatises preparing souls for the Last Judgment. They had recourse to astrology, very present in the 15th and 16th centuries. The signs of the zodiac, the anatomical plates, the macabre dances or representations of the underworld, the representations of agricultural or craft activities for each month of the year, must enrich the text to guide Man towards his salvation. The first Compost des bergers was printed in Paris by Guy Marchant in 1491, before being republished many times in the following decades. All sixteenth century editions of this popular calendar are extremely rare. This one, Gothic with two columns and with the title and calendar printed in red and black, following the tradition of manuscripts, is particularly rare. Based on an equation established between the life of a man and the cycle of the year, the text offers both a perpetual almanac and a rich collection of moral precepts, practical advice and religious pieces. The work first includes a prologue "of the auctor" justifying the fact that it transcribes the knowledge of the shepherds. The second prologue is that of the so-called master shepherd, who presents a lesson in counting. Our Compost is followed by a calendar, in the medieval tradition, such as is found in the preamble of many Books of Hours. In addition to the calendars, mobile tables and phases of the moon, the trees and branches of the virtues and vices, the punishments of hell, the book of the salvation of the soul, chapters of anatomy, phlebotomy, dietetics, etc., one finds there several poems or ballads such as the Dictz des oyseaux, the Dictic des trespasses en forme de Balade & du Jugement, les Dix commandemens de la Loy, Lhystoire du Navire sur Mer, le Dict du Mort, les Dix commandemens du diable, les Dix Nations Chrestiennes, etc. The illustration, of great interest, is composed of a very beautiful woodcut showing three shepherds in the field guarding their flocks and conversing while observing the stars, placed on the title, of more than 80 woodcuts in the text, including 8 large ones showing the penalties of hell, of fifty decorated letters and 522 small ramps for the tree of vices & mirror to know your sins. The calendar has 12 woodcuts corresponding to the occupation of the months. The cycle of 8 large woodcuts (105 x 97 mm) is of particular iconographical interest. The first one shows Lazarus telling Christ and the apostles, at Simon's table, the vision of his death. The 7 other engravings illustrate with violence, realism and fantasy the torments of hell. Very diverse, the whole of the engravings represent as much the occupations of the months with rural scenes, scene of hunting or gallant scene, as astronomical figures, figures of medicine or anatomy, the trees of the vices and the virtues. The typographical mark of the widow Bonfons is on the back of the last leaf (cf. Silvestre, n°125). Very interesting iconographic cycle, of popular factory, illustrating the cultural gap existing in 1569 between the cultivated elite penetrated by the Renaissance and the bourgeois of the cities still sensitive to the medieval imagination. A beautiful copy of a mythical illustrated book. This edition is cited by Brunet (II, 206) without collation and without location of copies. The USTC online catalog mentions only 2 copies in public collections, one in London (British Library), the other at Yale University in the United States. A fine wide-margined copy in an elegant red morocco binding by Chambolle-Duru called "aux pélicans", made for baron Pichon (1897, n°293). It bears an autograph note by the bibliophile on a flyleaf: "This volume is from 1569. One has the proof on the back of the l. C where the almanac of Easter and the mobile feasts begins in this year B.J.P ".