Marguerite, De Valois

Memorie Della Regina Margherita Di Valois

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presso Giacomo Sarzina Venetia [ie. Venice] 1641 Moglie D'Henrico IV. Il Grande. Descritte Dalla Medesima in Idioma Francese, e trasportate nell' Italiano, Da Pelopide Varrialira, Consecrate Alla Maestà della Regina D'Inghilterra. 12mo. [140 x 75 x 23 mm]. 285pp. Contemporary Italian binding of red goatskin, the covers tooled in gilt with a border and panel both composed of a dog-tooth roll, a dotted roll and a double fillet, the panel with a vase of flowers in each corner topped with a pair of rampant lions and a central oval surrounded with scrolls and enclosing a larger version of a rampant lion. The spine divided into five panels with gilt compartments formed by a double fillet and dog tooth roll, lettered in the upper panel, the others tooled with a lion, plain endleaves, gilt edges. (A few small wormholes at the head and foot of the spine). There is a little light browning and spotting but it is a very good copy in a fine binding. The three rampant lion tools appear to be identical to those used by the Roman binder Gregorio Andreoli on the binding of a Venetian imprint of 1648 which was illustrated as item 87 in Martin Breslauer's catalogue 110. Breslauer described these tools as being the original owner's arms, but they may have been purely decorative. A matching set of lions were reproduced by Tolomei in his survey of Andreoli's tools in the catalogue of the exhibition "Legatura Romana Barocca 1565-1700" (1991) and the frequent use of a dog-tooth roll was one of the bindery's trademarks. Our vase of flowers does not appear on Breslauer's binding or amongst Tolomei's tools. Gregorio Andreoli was binding by the early 1630s and was employed by the Vatican by 1659. In 1665 he was appointed Vatican binder for life, and was most famously patronised by Giulio Rospigliosi. In 1675 he was joined by his brother, Giovanni, who continued to run the bindery for a short time after Gregorio death in 1696. Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615) was the daughter of Henry II and Catherine de Medici. In 1572 she married Henry of Navarre, who acceded to the throne as Henri IV in 1589. Both husband and wife were "extreme examples of the licentious manners of the times", and the marriage was annulled in 1599. Marguerite then moved to Paris and became an influential patroness of letters, as well as an author of poetry and these memoirs. She was known affectionately as "la reine Margot", but was the subject of several scurrilous pamphlets (or as the "Encyclopædia Britannica" reported it: "her character, and still more her circumstances, made the pen very unamiably busy with her in her lifetime"). This Italian edition of her memoirs appears to be rare, and is not in the BL. It was dedicated to Henrietta Maria (1609-1669), daughter of Henri IV and wife of Charles I of England.

• GBP 2,500.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: ebc1848

• bookseller: George Bayntun (GREAT BRITAIN)