Beschreibung:

DIGULLEVILLE, Guillaume de. Le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine , in the French prose translation commissioned by JEANNE DE LAVAL , illuminated manuscript on vellum made for CHARLOTTE OF SAVOY [Tours or Angers, c.1470].
DIGULLEVILLE, Guillaume de. Le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine , in the French prose translation commissioned by JEANNE DE LAVAL , illuminated manuscript on vellum made for CHARLOTTE OF SAVOY [Tours or Angers, c.1470]. 290 x 199 mm. 148 leaves: 1 6 (of 8, lacking iii and vi), 2-18 8 , 19 6 . 33 lines written in a dark brown lettre bâtarde , ruled in red, written space: 180 x 112mm. Traces of catchwords, headings in red, capitals touched yellow, 3-line illuminated initials throughout, full-length border on first leaf, SEVENTY-SIX MINIATURES (c.70 x 70mm), drawn in brown ink infilled with pale washes, heightened and framed in gold, ARMS OF CHARLOTTE OF SAVOY, QUEEN OF FRANCE on f.1v (lacking two leaves with miniatures, minor cropping, e.g. to the supporters of the arms on f.1v, some light wear and thumbing). Late 18th-century French mottled calf gilt. Black morocco fitted case gilt. PROVENANCE : (1) WRITTEN AND ILLUMINATED FOR CHARLOTTE OF SAVOY (1441-1483), QUEEN OF FRANCE, GRANDDAUGHTER OF ANTI-POPE FELIX V, DAUGHTER OF LOUIS OF SAVOY AND MARY OF CYPRUS, WIFE OF LOUIS XI OF FRANCE AND MOTHER OF CHARLES VIII : her arms on f.1v. Likely a presentation copy from JEANNE DE LAVAL, QUEEN OF JERUSALEM (1433-1498) . The manuscript appears in the 1484 inventory of Charlotte’s library: ‘Item, un livre couvert de violet, fermant a deux fremouers d’argent, aux armes de la royne, faisant mention du Pellerinaige de vie humaine , remis en ung estuy de blanc et de roge’ (A. Tuetey, ‘Inventaire des biens de Charlotte de Savoie’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des chartes , 26, Paris, 1865, p.362 ; A-M. Légaré, ‘Charlotte de Savoie’s Library and Illuminators’, Journal of the Early Book Society , 4, 2001, inv. no 77) and ‘Le pellerinaige, en prose’ (Delisle, Cabinet des Manuscrits , I, 1868, p.93). Charlotte of Savoy’s library consisted of over a hundred manuscripts: of these, only eight now survive – all, except this one, in public institutions. (2) 17- and 18th-century inscriptions on the endleaves, one signed ‘votre affectionné serviteur Launay’, possibly Jean, baron de Launay (d.1687), another ‘votre servante, Marie Be[sanc]not’. At the foot of the spine is a green morocco label with the monogram ‘DR’ below a coronet. (3) SIR THOMAS PHILLIPPS (1792-1872) , his MS. 228, bought in Paris from De Bure in 1824; by descent with the residue of the Phillipps collection to Messrs. Robinson, cat.83 (1953), p.41. (4) ‘The Property of a Lady’; Sotheby’s, 6 July 1964, lot 267, to Howlett; re-sold 29 November 1990, lot 117 and again in The Jaime Ortiz Patino Collection of Important Books and Manuscripts , Tuesday, 21 April 1998. (5) Antiquariat Bibermühle, 2004. CONTENT : Prologue, beginning : ‘A lonneur et gloire de dieu tout puissant et pour obeir a la requeste de tres haulte [...],’ f.1 ; Le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine , beginning ‘A tous princes princesses et aultres gens habitans sur la terre [...],’ and ending: ‘[...] de la gloire de paradis que dieu donit aux mors et aux vifs, Amen’ ff.1v-145v. The Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine was one of the great literary sensations of the 14th century, and the first of a three-book series dealing with the idea of an allegorical pilgrimage (the second being the Pèlerinage de l’Ame and the third the Pèlerinage de Jésus-Christ ). Charles V owned at least five copies; Jean duc de Berry three in the vernacular and one in Latin, and Philip the Bold two. Composed in c.1330 by the Cistercian monk Guillaume de Digulleville (whose authorship is shown by acrostics in the texts of his compositions) and inspired by earlier metaphysical pilgrim-texts such as the 12th-century Songe d’Enfer of Raoul de Houdenc and the 13th-century Voie de Paradis , it espouses the popular medieval theme of the homo viator – the travelling Christian pilgrim – and spins it into an epic theological quest to the heavenly Jerusalem, rife with physical and spiritual challenges and existential moral choices. The author/pilgrim recounts how one day, after reading th