Beschreibung:

GUY DE FONTENAY (c.1486-post 1550), Traité des quatre vertus principales dites cardinales précédé d'un discours sur la vertu , in French and Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER [Berry, early 1550s] 328 x 236mm. 103 leaves, mostly of 23 lines written in brown ink in a cursive hand between two horizontals and two verticals ruled in brown, justification: 216 x 141mm, running titles, side headings, capitals touched red, paragraph marks in red, TWO FULL-PAGE COATS OF ARMS, FOURTEEN FULL-PAGE MINIATURES (spreading of red, some wear to miniatures). Vellum over pasteboard, reused document with remains of seal on upper cover (spotted, scuffed). A PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN WORK BY THE POET AND HUMANIST GUY DE FONTENAY PROVENANCE: 1. Guy de Fontenay, archdeacon and canon of Nevers Cathedral, completed the work at his family's château of the Tour de Vesvre, near Sancerre, 15 October 1550 (ff.2, 6). If not the original volume given to the dedicatee, Marguerite de Bourbon, duchesse de Nevers (1516-1589), this copy seems at the least to have been owned by a member of the Bourbon affinity. The deliberate damage to the figure of the jurist, Jean du Tillet (f.63), is presumably the result of his prominent support of the Guise against the Bourbon: he voted for the death penalty for Louis I de Condé in 1560. It is not clear when the four poems praising de Fontenay were written in a different script at the end of the volume, ff.101-102; a verso and recto remain blank before the concluding miniature on f.103v. They come from his immediate circle: the poem of Guillaume Rapine, governor of the Nivernais since 1535, was prompted by this work; one of the two poems by his nephew, Jean de Marrafin, seigneur de Guerchy, the son of his sister Emée and Jean de Marrafin, seigneur de Viel-Moulin, was written to accompany a copy of the work sent to his cousin, Madame de Rezay. CONTENT: Guy de Fontenay, Traité des quatre vertus principales ff.2-79: title f.2; Latin poem on Virtus with French prose translation f.2v; dedication to Marguerite de Bourbon, duchesse de Nevers (1516-1589) f.5-6; treatise on virtue, with prefatory matter including dedicatory poem to Henry II (1519-1559), pronounced by the paranymphe de vertu , Bordilon, Imbert de la Platière, dit Bourdillon, marshal of France, and grandson of Guy de Fontenay's aunt, Marie de Fontenay ff.9-31; Prudence, opening with a Latin poem and dedicatory French verse to Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme (1518-1562), brother of the duchesse de Nevers, presented by Ligny, the paranymphe de prudence , possibly the author Cesar de Ligny ff. 32-50v; Fortitude, opening with a Latin poem and dedicatory French verse to Francois de Clèves, duc de Nevers (1516-1568), married to Marguerite de Bourbon since 1538, spoken by Gyry, paranymphe de force , ff.53-65v; Temperance, opening with a Latin poem and a dedicatory French verse to Anne de Montmorency, constable of France (1493-1567), spoken by paranymphe de vertu , La Roche Posay, presumably Jean de Chasteignier, siegneur de la Roche Posay (c.1490-1567), one of the chief financial officials of the crown ff.69-81v; Justice, opening with a Latin poem and a dedicatory French verse to the Parlement de Paris , spoken by the paranymphe de vertu , the jurist Jean du Tillet (d.1587) ff.83-100v; laudatory poems to Guy de Fontenay by Hector de Villepleine, Jean de Marrafin and Guillaume Rapine ff.101-102. Guy de Fontenay was the seventeenth child of Guillaume, a younger son of Guy, baron de Fontenay, who received the Tour de Vesvres as his share of the family lands. The author Guy's title of seigneur de St-Aubin came from his mother Philiberte de Digoine. Like others of his family Guy relied on the church, and particularly the Cathedral of Nevers, for his income: his uncle Pierre de Fontenay was Bishop of Nevers from 1461-1499. Here, in the dedication to Marguerite de Bourbon, it is his most famous literary relation who is invoked: the poet Octavien de St-Gelais, bishop of Angoulême 149