The only edition of an epic on the Passion in vers héroïque, by Michel Foucqué, vicar of Saint-Martin de Tours. Foucqué was clearly inspired by the great epics of the Matter of France, though with textual modernizations for a post-Ronsard readership. Foucqué's knowledge of New Testament source material was unassailable, with citations and one-line summaries in the shoulder notes of every strophe. In the prologue, the author goes to some lengths to divest the work of his own vanity, stressing his hope that the simplicity and directness of the verse, in concert with the holiness of the subject matter, will be enough to engage the reader. La Vie is thought to be Foucqué's only published work, though du Verdier asserts that Foucqué wrote a paraphrase of John of Chrysostom, with additional observations on Lactantius, that was published at Tours in 1550, but we find no corroboration of this assertion. (The USTC citation parrots du Verdier and later bibliographers.) Some of Foucqué's unpublished manuscripts survive, including a 1541 French verse interpretation of the Song of Solomon penned on 17 parchment folios (BnF Français 24734), which was once owned by the Duc de Vallière. That manuscript was authored by one Michel Phoque, who du Verdier insists was the same person as Foucqué. Our book was printed by Jean Bienné, who uses the well-cut italic fount of Guillaume Morel, in whose shop Bienné had worked as a corrector, and which he took over after he married Morel's widow, Barbe de Mascon. Whatever intriguing details an investigation of that story may yield, La Vie survives as a fetching testimonial to Bienné's abilities as a printer. The present copy is in its original, unrestored retail parchment binding. No copies located in US libraries. 

Octavo, 180 x 120 x 28 mm (binding), 178 x 113 x 26 mm (text block). A-Kk⁸; 514, [14] pp. Ruled in bistre. Contemporary limp parchment, spine titled in ink on tail edge of text block, 16th-c manuscript waste used as sewing supports. Some wear to extremities, ties wanting. Interior: a few deckles preserved, leaves somehwat toned, minor soiling passim.

Provenance: Early 18th-c custodial inscription on title of the Monastery of Saint-Aubin at Angers; late 19th-c penciled note inside lower cover, acheté chez M^r Guillet; three pages of early 20th-c notes on Foucqué penciled on an inserted folded sheet; purchase note at end of the Librairie Henner, Paris, 2007, with an unbroken price code; once in the collection of Geneva bibliophile Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, with his bookplate to upper pastedown; acquired by W. S. Cotter from Nina Musinsky of New York in 2023.

Pettegree 20183; Brunet VII, col. 513; La Croix du Maine (1584), p. 325; Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie générale, v. 18, p. 291. USTC 2556 provides an unreliable citation with a faulty collation, and USTC 84478 records a 1573 16mo, which likely did not exist, given that Bienné's first privilege to print was dated 1574.

Paris: Jean Bienné, 1574.

Item #352