GRATIANUS La Vie du cardinal Jean François Commendon divisée en quatre livre. Traduite en françois par monsieur Fléchier.

Cioranescu, 30328.  

First edition of the translation by Valentin Esprit Fléchier (1632-1710).  A very fine copy bearing the arms of the Count of Hoym.

Fléchier entered the congregation at the age of fifteen and went to Paris, where he successively became a tutor at Caumartin’s, a guest of the Montausiers, a tutor to the Dauphin, in the company of Bossuet and D. Huet, and chaplain to the Dauphin, Marie-Anne of Bavaria. Highly esteemed by his contemporaries, Abbé Fléchier was elected to the Académie Française: ‘In 1672, the Académie Française welcomed him, at the age of forty, as the successor to another familiar figure at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, le Nain de Julie, Godea, bishop of Vence, and it was for his reception that it inaugurated its public sessions. It was so successful that Racine, who was introduced on the same day in January 1673, read his speech almost in a whisper and refused to publish it’ (Grente).

Giovanni Francesco Commendon (1524-1584), Italian cardinal, who carried out diplomatic missions successively under Popes Julius III, Pius IV and Pius V. During his missions, he stayed in England with Queen Mary I, and travelled through Austria, Germany and Poland.

Very nice copy.