Le proces des deulx amãs plaidyant en la court... Lot 41

Le proces des deulx amãs plaidyant en la court de Cupido la grace de leur dame... Plaquette in-16, brown calf, the boards entirely decorated in cold with repeated rectangular motifs of flowers, dragons, suns..., on the first board a gilt frame formed by the author's name and the title of the work, spine with 4 nerves decorated in cold, chased edges. (Binding late 19th or early 20th century). Bechtel, 225/D-201 // Brunet, Supplément I-380 // Fairfax Murray, 120 // Harrisse, 68 // USTC, 72667. (15f. of 16, the last, possibly blank, missing here) / a-b8 / 22 or 23 lines / 93 x 130 mm. Extremely rare edition of this dialogue in verse and prose between the author, the lady, Cupid and the two lovers. The author is best known for his poem Le Roussier des dames,sive le pelerin damours, published in Lyon around 1530, but we're hard pressed to find any biographical information about him. The little pamphlet we are presenting is a rare gem. It features a handsome woodcut on the title, depicting the author and a young knight. It was described by Bechtel on the basis of the Lignerolles copy, which later passed to Pichon and then to Maus. Harrisse also provides a fairly complete description in his work Excerpta Colombiniana, in which he reproduces the title and first verses of the work. The two copies described contain a folio b8 illustrated with an engraved woodcut. Our copy conforms to the description of the Lignerolles copy and presents two differences with the Fernand Colomb copy, the first in the title with the word grace pour gra, the second in a verse on folio a3: Dont se ie dis mon advis de telz femmes pour Dont ie dis mon admis de tels femmes. On the other hand, our copy does not contain folio b8, a folio that Fairfax Murray probably thought was blank, but which could be a printed folio that had been removed. Lastly, this copy, which we believe was bound around 1900, bears a small unidentified gilt number on the front flyleaf, the Fairfax Murray label and a bookplate. Biblioteca Colombina, which appears to be a reproduction of a seal. We know that the considerable library of Fernand Colomb, son of Christopher Columbus, numbered over 15,000 volumes, and that a large proportion of the works disappeared over time, falling victim to neglect, deterioration or theft. In our opinion, this edition differs from the Lignerolles copy by a few typographical letters. It may have originally come from Fernand Colomb's library, which is why the last leaf, on which Fernand Colomb used to note the place where he had acquired his work, has been removed. If this reasoning were accepted, it is likely that the last leaf included a woodcut identical to that on the Lignerolles copy. Nonetheless, this little gem is extremely rare, as the USTC only lists the BnF edition. Provenance: Fernand Colomb (?) (modern bookplate, Biblioteca Colombina), Fairfax Murray (label, no. 120) and interlaced numeral CE (unidentified).