Brussels [i.e. Nancy]: S. n., 1775.
In 1775, the Mercantile Corps of Thionville declined to grant a license for a commercial venture to a Jew of Metz, Moyse May, an industrious printer and publisher of Hebrew liturgical texts who had operated under the name Joseph Antoine since the late 1750s.....
Paris: Alain Lotrian, 1541-2.
The last Gothic edition of a most popular French mystery play, originally written by the brothers Arnou and Simon Gréban of Le Mans in the 1450s, and expanded to more than double length by the Angers poet Jehan Michel a generation later. The Gréban original was.....
Paris: Richard Breton, 1559.
First edition. It's not surprising that Abel Matthieu, in advocating a return to a more elegant and balanced French language, chose to have his argument printed by Richard Breton in Philippe Danfrie's civilité type, which itself was a celebration of the beauty of an earlier French.....
Paris: Guillaume Merlin, 1538-1558.
An early French-gothic edition of this series of fifteen meditations on the moments of suffering in the life of Christ, by the Franciscan divine Philip of Aquila. Each effusion is illustrated with a tiny, well-executed woodcut, two of which are signed "G.M.," which is unlikely to.....
Paris? 1515-1525.
Only known copy of an edition of medieval advice to young people on how to prepare for a life as a domestic. The work belongs to a long late-medieval tradition of doctrinals, or books of advice in verse, and became some of the earlier products of the vernacular.....
Paris? Jean Petit, 1514.
A fascinating French vernacular "art of war" vade mecum by the largely unknown Remy Rousseau, dedicated to Charles de Bourbon in the final years of the War of the Holy League. The work, which is divided into ten chapters, draws heavily on Frontinus's Strategemata, with direct.....
Paris: Jacques Barois, 1741.
[2711 lots, priced.] The auction catalogue of the diverse and well-balanced collection of Michel Peletier de Souzy [1640-1725], director-general of fortifications for Louis XIV. The collection was managed and expanded by de Souzy's son, Michel-Robert, until his own death in 1740. In those fifteen intervening years.....
Paris? 1578?
A request directed to Henri III of France to reduce the tax burden on the good subjects of Burgundy, arguing by virtue of case studies of suffering Burgundians that existing taxes and obligatory tributes are too large a strain on the tax base. The treshumble request is framed.....