Journal du Voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie

In-4 of (4) ll., 1 portrait, 54 pp., 416 pp., copy with all edges untrimmed, old marbled paper wrapper, later boards, later endpapers, some stains and marginal restoration to the last leaves.

303 x 230 mm.

Montaigne, Michel de. Journal of the Journey of Michel de Montaigne in Italy via Switzerland and Germany, in 1580 and 1581. With notes by M. de Querlon.
Rome and Paris, 1774.

First quarto edition of the Journal du Voyage de Montaigne “published almost at the same time as the duodecimo edition” (Tchémerzine, IV, 914).

It has always been more sought after than the small format edition.
It is adorned with a portrait of Montaigne engraved by Saint-Aubin.

“This book is of great importance for understanding the mind and character of Montaigne” (Graesse IV, 581).

“In keeping with the bibliophilic taste of the 18th century, the quarto format is considered the most desirable and most of the known copies in this format are in light calf, marbled or mottled, with richly decorated and gilt spines… The two-volume duodecimo edition is less desirable and much less sought after than the quarto” (Philippe Desan, no. 111 and 113).

The unpublished manuscript of this account, partly written in Montaigne’s own hand, was discovered by Abbé Prunis among the papers of the old château of Montaigne.

On June 22, 1580, Montaigne left his château, where in nine years he had composed the first two books of his essays. He first went up to Paris, then began this journey, undertaken only to know the most renowned baths against the stone disease and to see new lands and new people.

“He stopped at Plombières for a cure; then via Mulhouse, he reached Basel, from where he left for Baden. Following the Rhine, he admired the falls at Schaffhausen, paused at Constance, and then continued to Augsburg. He passed Munich, crossed the Tyrol via Bolzano and Trento (where he already heard Italian spoken), and arrived in Verona on All Saints’ Day. In Venice, he inquired about everything—especially the courtesans—then visited Bologna, Tuscany, Florence, Siena, Buonconvento, Viterbo, and reached Rome on November 30. He stayed there until April 19, 1581. Crossing the Apennines, he visited Loreto, reached Ancona, Fano, turned towards Urbino, and by Borgo-San Sepolcro, reached Florence. Then came Pistoria, Lucca and its famous baths. He stayed there from May 8 to June 21, visited the surroundings, and particularly admired Pisa. On August 14, he returned to Lucca, where he learned he had just been elected mayor of Bordeaux. He then returned to Rome, where he stayed for the first fifteen days of October. From there, he went up to Siena, Lucca, Sarzana, Piacenza, Pavia (admiring its charterhouse), and only made a brief stop in Milan. On the last day of November, he returned home.”

“From September 1580 to November 1581, Montaigne thus traveled in Europe: Germany, Switzerland, Italy, to discover the other in their difference and diversity: what people ate interested him as much as what they thought, and in Rome he listened just as intently to the conversation of ‘public women’ as to ‘theological disputes’ or visiting the antiquities of the cardinal’s vineyards. ‘The kings of Persia,’ he said, ‘who made a point of never drinking any water but that of the river Choaspes, foolishly renounced their right of use in all other waters, and thus dried up for themselves the rest of the world’” (Fausta Garavini-Gallimard).

“The ‘Journal de Voyage’ of Montaigne is generally seen, in his diuretic journey through Europe, as a biographical and literary document; in this respect, it is already interesting to look behind the curtains of the Essays, to distinguish from the subject of the work of wisdom the historical person” (Guy Demerson).

An indispensable complement to the Essais, this journey to Italy was to deeply influence Montaigne’s sensibility. Its influence would be decisive on the third book of the Essais.

Valuable copy on large Dutch paper, with all edges uncut.