Destruction de l'orgueil mondain

Two works in one octavo volume, full red morocco mosaic binding, covers decorated with a Renaissance design in the style of Grolier, spine raised bands in the same style, gilt fillets on the edges, inner gilt roll, gilt edges. Deluxe mosaic interlaced binding associating Thibaron before his partnership with Joly and Marius Michel père, Gilder circa 1855.

144 x 99 mm.

Grandin d'Angers, François. Destruction of Worldly Pride, Ambition for Clothing, and Other New Inventions, Extracted from the Holy Scripture & the Ancient Doctors of the Church. 
Paris, Claude Fremy, rue Saint Jacques at the sign of St. Martin, 1558.
Followed by the Blazon of the Basquines.

Extremely rare original edition of “this uncommon volume” (Brunet), the only copy cited by this illustrious bibliographer: “An uncommon volume, of which a fine copy in morocco was sold for 59 francs. Veinant in 1860. At the end of the work is the Blason des basquines, a poem in verse, which was reprinted separately in Lyon in 1563”.
And an equally rare original edition of the“ Blason des basquines et vertugalles... dated 1558”.

Montaigne and Chivalric Novels.

According to men of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the ages of life determined, by both secret and obvious effects, the humors of the body, the protection of the stars, and the inclinations of the soul. Would the ages of life also decide what men and women read? Were there, in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, readings for youth and readings for old age? Chivalric literature was the testing ground where answers to this question were sought. The research thus discovered that in the 16th century there formed a powerful link between one age of life, youth, and one literary genre, the chivalric romance. Chivalric literature was never as much enjoyed and as much criticized as in the 16th century. Thanks to the combined effects of printing and increasing literacy, the written word became decipherable to a very wide range of people. At the same time, chivalric novels, thanks to the new vitality brought to the genre by texts such as the Spanish Amadis and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, enjoyed unprecedented success.
But the height of glory was also the beginning of disgrace: as the end of the century approached, these novels came under increasing attack from humanist and religious criticism. When he wrote Don Quixote, Cervantes placed the seal of parody upon a genre already excluded from the canon of modernity. One perceptive observer of the century mentions the chivalric tales in two places. The first time, Michel de Montaigne discusses these texts in a well-known chapter of the Essays devoted to childhood education. There he compares his bedside book at eight years old to the readings of children of the same age:

The first taste I had for books came from the pleasure of the fables of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. For, around the age of seven or eight, I would steal away from every other pleasure to read them; since that language was my mother tongue, and it was the easiest book I knew and the most suited to the weakness of my age, because of the subject. For the Lancelots of the Lake, the Amadises, the Huons of Bordeaux, and such a muddle of books with which childhood amuses itself, I did not even know their names, nor do I yet know them, so strict was my upbringing. 
Michel de Montaigne, Essays, ed. by J. Balsamo, M. Magnien and C. Magnien-Simonin, Paris, Gallimard, 2007 [Bibliothèque de la Pléiade], Book I, ch. xxv, On the Education of Children, p. 182.

Id, Book II, ch. x, On Books, p. 389. Among simply pleasant books, I find, among the moderns, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Rabelais and the Kisses of Jean Second (if they are to be listed under this title) worthy of one’s amusement. As for the Amadises and that sort of writing, they never had the credit of even holding my attention as a child. I will add this, either boldly or rashly, that this old heavy soul is no longer titillated, not only by Ariosto, but even by good Ovid—his facility and inventions, which once delighted me, hardly entertain me now.

This passage is often cited by historians of chivalric literature.
It is generally interpreted as evidence of the discredit into which these texts had fallen by the end of the 16th century.

Similar attempts at censorship occurred throughout the 16th century. In the Destruction of Worldly Pride, François Grandin discusses chivalric novels in the wake of a tirade against the vanity of female adornments and within a passage on children’s education. He urges husbands and mothers to forbid wives and children from reading novels, since these books open the door to idleness and a dissolute life. According to him, Amadis, in his time, was more read than the Bible, for there was not “a good mother’s child, who does not quote from its worldly sayings”.

Then, on pages 146 to 152, follows the poem entitled: “The Blazon of Basquines and Farthingales, with the beautiful remonstrance made by some ladies when told they should no longer wear them. Lyon, Ben. Rigaud, 1563, small octavo of 8 leaves, here from leaves 146 to 151.

This poem first appeared in 1558 as an appendix to the Destruction of Worldly Pride, by Fr. Grandin. Later, B. Rigaud printed it separately, and it is on his rare edition that the Paris edition of 1833 was based, printed in only 50 copies, of which three on vellum. Another reprint is included in the first volume of the Recueil de poésies, published by M. de Montaigion.” (Brunet).

Magnificent copy of two precious first editions, the only copy cited by Brunet, from the collections of Veinant (1860), E. M. Bancel (1882), Charles Lormier (1900), Georges Wendling (ex-libris).