Les Décades de Tite-Live
“Livy presents himself to us as the most modern of ancient historians” (Gérard Walter).
Precious copy from Jean de la Vieuville, “belonging to the small circle of the curious that developed in Paris at the end of the reign of Louis XIV and whose activity anticipated the great bibliophilic movement of the full 18th century” (Jean-Marc Chatelain).
14 volumes in-12, red morocco, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, gilt coat of arms stamped at center, spines with raised bands richly decorated, decorated edges, inner gilt roll, gilt edges. Armorial binding of the period attributable to Luc-Antoine Boyet, active from 1690 to 1733.
140 x 78 mm.
Livy. (59 BC – 17 AD) The Decades of Livy translated into French by P. Du Ryer of the French Academy.
Lyon and Paris, 1664-1669.
Very rare Lyon edition of the Decades of Livy, unknown to Brunet.
Complete in 14 volumes in-12mo, it is decorated with an engraved title-frontispiece after Cordier, a medallion portrait of Livy, and a headpiece with the arms of the dedicatee, the Archbishop of Lyon Camille de Neufville. The translation is by Pierre Du Ryer (1605-1658).
Printed in Lyon by Christofle Fourmy, this edition was put on sale again by Parisian booksellers in 1669 with a new title page. Both imprints are found in our copy.
Livy is considered the most "literary" of the Roman historians.
Precious copy bound in the 17th century for Jean de la Vieuville, bailiff of the Order of Malta and ambassador of Malta in France, who died on October 26, 1714. He likely left his books to his brother, René-François, Marquis de la Vieuville (1652-1719), one of the three collectors studied and presented in "French Bindings of the 17th century – Masterpieces of the Condé Museum."
René-François was one of the most famous bibliophiles of the 17th century, known for the "à la Vieuville" lacework on his copies. Both belonged "to the small circle of collectors that developed in Paris at the end of the reign of Louis XIV and whose activity anticipated the great bibliophilic movement of the full 18th century" (Jean-Marc Chatelain).
Knight of honor of Queen Marie-Thérèse and governor of Poitou, René François, Marquis de La Vieuville (1652-1719), was the grandson of Charles de La Vieuville, Superintendent of Finances under Louis XIII. In 1624, the latter was suddenly disgraced. It was Anne of Austria, who became regent, who was to save him from ruin and restore his fortune. In 1651, at the height of his favor, he was even made a duke and peer. Upon the superintendent’s death, his son Charles II was allowed to bear the title for life but, as the letters patent were never registered, René François definitively lost the ducal crown upon his father’s death. This lost crown is the essential element of the “La Vieuville lacework,” whose name has been handed down by booksellers’ tradition to the present day.
These bindings were all executed between about 1690 and 1710 by a single workshop. This workshop is that of Boyet, or more precisely that of his gilder, as the bookblocks may have been made by two different binders. Indeed, Luc-Antoine Boyet, who became a master around 1684, probably did not have a gilding workshop of his own.
Beautiful copy in red morocco with the arms of one of the celebrated collectors, a remarkable bibliophile from the end of the reign of Louis XIV.
O. H. R., pl. 718. Gérard Walter, Dictionary of Authors, Laffont-Bompiani, IV, pp. 511-513. Chatelain, The Library of the Honest Man: books, readings and collections in France in the Classical Age, pp.133-134. (Masterpieces of the Condé Museum – 2002).
