Beschreibung:

ROZIER -- Pierre CHOISNET. Le Rozier Historial de France . Paris: [Gilles Couteau, for François Regnault], 26 February 1522. 2° (304 x 209mm). PRINTED ON VELLUM. Collation: a-z 6 aa-nn 6 (a1r title, a1v blank, a2r presentation woodcut and verses, a2v chapter headings, a3r prologue and part I, c1v part II, nn6v colophon). 216 leaves. Double columns, bâtarde type. Title printed in red and black. 293 WOODCUTS FROM 92 BLOCKS, woodcut capitals of varying design, woodcut strip borders around some illustrations; the large (155x148mm) woodcut on the title-page has scrolls printed with type in red (cut is repeated on nn1r without text in scrolls) and is signed with a Lorraine cross. (Minor repair to vellum in c6, k1,6, ee5, small stain on a2.) Gold-tooled red morocco over pasteboard, wide border on sides built up with floral and foliage stamps, spine tooled in compartments using same stamps and with olive morooco lettering pieces, gilt turn-ins, silk liners, vellum flyleaves, gauffered and gilt edges (spine slightly faded), bound in "French morocco" by Charles Lewis for Botfield for #6.6.0. Provenance : Jean-Baptiste Pâris de Meyzieu (London sale 1791, no.547, then bound in "veau fauve", #24.3.0); Count MacCarthy-Reagh (Paris, cat. II, no.4507 still bound in "veau fauve", 400 francs); George Hibbert (1757-1837, sale 1829, no.7142, to Payne & Foss for #17.17.0), sold to; Beriah Botfield for #31.10.0 (P. & F. Acquisitions, p.79). FIRST EDITION. The first part, the Rozier des guerres , which occupies the first eleven leaves only, contains instructions for a young prince, including warfare, government and conduct. It was first published separately in about 1488-90 at Lyons, only two copies of which are known, and again in 1521 at Paris. The text of the 1488-90 edition was claimed to have been written by Louis XI, but manuscripts and other printed editions contain verses concealing the author's name in an anagram. Pierre Chenisot and Estienne Porchier have been suggested, but Delisle's decipherment of Pierre Choisnet was matched by J. Kaulek in 1883 with a real person who was attached to the court of Louis XI. Choisnet (ca.1411-ca.1484) appears in royal account books from 1466 to 1480 as king's physician and then as physician-astrologer, and is last found mentioned in 1483 in a rental agreement with the religious house of St. Ouen de Rouen. Choisnet also wrote Le livre des trois eages . (See Ch. Samaran, "Pierre Choisnet", Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes , 87 (1926), 372-80; and Early Printed Books, Major Acquisitions of the Pierpont Morgan Library 1924-1974 .) The second part is a chronicle of the histories of France, England, Germany, Spain, Scotland, Sicily, Flanders, and other countries. THIS IS ONE OF ONLY THREE KNOWN COPIES PRINTED ON VELLUM, the other two being in the Bibliothèque Nationale. While paper copies are known to bear the date 1523 as well as 1522, the vellum copies are all dated 1522. In addition, this copy has an imprint ( en la rue sainct Jaques a lenseigne sainct Claude ) and Cum Privilegio below the cut on the title-page, but does not carry the privilege of François I dated 23 March 1522/3 on its verso as in some copies; that page is blank here. IN EXTREMELY FINE CONDITION. The woodcuts used to illustrate this edition come from many sources, some of which are as follows: *the presentation cut on a2r from Le Triomphe des neuf Preux , Abbeville: P.Gerard, 1487 *soldiers at a town's edge by the water on y3v, part of a cut from La Mer des Histoires (i.e. Rudimentum noviciorum ), Paris: P. Le Rouge, 1488-89 *scribe on ii2 from Petrus de Crescentiis, Livre des ruraux prouffitz et labeurs des champs , Paris: J. Bonhomme, 1486 *rout of Venetians on ll1&4 from Claude de Seyssel, La victoire du roy contre les Veniciens , Paris: A. Vérard, 1510. *24 portraits probably from the Chroniques de France , Paris: J. Maurand for A. Vérard, 1493 *siege on f1r (and elsewhere) from Martial de Paris, Les vigilles de la mort de Char