PASSERAT Jean. Le Premier livre des poèmes. Revues & augmentez par l’autheur en ceste dernière edition. [Relié en tête:] Kalendae Ianuariae & varia quaedam poëmatia.

Tchemerzine-Scheler, V ; Brunet, IV, 417 ; Guigard, II, 360 ; Schwerdt, II, 61 (first edition 1597).

Second and last edition published during the lifetime of the author, who died on 12 December 1602; it is more complete than the 1597 edition indicated by Tchemerzine.

The collection begins with hunting poems (Le Chien courant, Le Cerf d’amour; Adonis, ou la Chasse du Sanglier; La Métamorphose de l’homme en oiseau) followed by fourteen elegies, a sonnet and two odes.

“Passerat composed several songs on hunting, including ‘Le chien courant’ which is the most important, as well as the ‘Cerf d’amour’ and ‘Adonis, ou la chasse du sanglier’. The first of these is especially instructive as the theme is entirely hunting though all posses a certain dryness of style and their diction is monotonous. The best of Passerat’s work is ‘La Métamorphose de l’homme en oiseau’, which might by a stretch of imagination be considered a sporting item and which contains the poems mentioned here” (Schwerdt).

Although dated differently, the two works were offered for sale together and are usually found in a single volume. The Kalendæ Januariæ is a collection of Latin poems that Passerat composed at the beginning of each year and offered to his patron, Henri de Mesmes, for twenty-seven years, from 1 January 1570 to 1 January 1596. This collection of Latin poems is adorned with a very fine portrait of the author engraved by Thomas de Leu (Brunet erroneously indicates one portrait for each part; Tchemerzine counts only one).

Thomas de Leu (1560-1612), engraver and publisher of prints, began his career in 1579 with the portrait of Justice. A highly talented portraitist, he created more than 300 portraits, including those of Caron, Montaigne and Rabel. Beautiful bibliophily provenance This copy first belonged to “Claude V Molé, seigneur de Villy-le-Maréchal, de Ronceray et autres lieux, maître d’hôtel ordinaire du roi. Il mourut en 1660, après s’être formé une bibliothèque dont tous les livres étaient remarquablement reliés en veau fauve par le petit Lorrain, relieur de Troyes, avec ses armes sur les plats et son chiffre aux angles et sur le dos” (OHR).

Other provenance : Pierre-Jean Grosley (signature on each title). Grosley (1718-1785) is the author of the famous Mémoires historiques et critiques de l’histoire de Troyes (1774) and Observations sur l’Italie (1764). 

A very good copy despite a small light waterstain in the top corner at the beginning of the volume.