TIXIER Jean De memorabilibus et claris mulieribus aliquot diversorum scriptorum Opera

(I) BP16 104403; FB 89144; USTC 145382; Moreau, III, 233; P. Renouard, Simon de Colines, pp. 20–22; Schreiber, Colines, no. 5; (II) USTC 184050; Renouard, Estienne, 23:5; Moreau, II, 2367; not in Schreiber, Estiennes, cf. Hägele, “Einbände aus der Bibliothek des Markus Fugger,” in “Ein Reichtum, den kein Maß bestimmen kann“: Die Sondersammlungen der Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg (Augsburg, 2021), pp. 72–80.

I: First edition.

An anthology of the lives of famous women, extracted (or printed entirely) from the works of Plutarchus, Jacopo Filippo Foresti, Battista Fregoso, Raffaele Maffei, Valerand de La Varanne, and other authors, several anonymous. Jean Tixier, a teacher of rhetoric at the Paris Collège de Navarre, contributed biographies of the founder of his college (Jeanne de Navarre, ca. 1305), the French Queen Anne de Bretagne (1477–1514), Charlotte de Bourbon (1474–Fontevraud abbey 14 December 1520, widow of Engelbert de Clèves, comte de Nevers), and lists of infamous women (Meretrices quaedam), educated women (Mulieres doctae), illustrious women (Nomina quarundam foeminarum illustrium), warriors (Mulieres bellicose & masculae virtutis), and women who have caused wars or other evils (Bella & alia quaedam mala a mulieribus orta).

“The volume opens with Plutarch’s De Claris mulieribus (in the Latin version by Alamannus Rinuccinus : first published at Brescia, 1485), and includes the popular Renaissance work of the same title by Jacopo Filippo Foresti, the life of Catherine of Siena, by Jean de Pins, and a section on scholarly women (including Sappho, St. Elizabeth of Schönau, and St. Hildegard) by Baptista Fregoso.

One of the most interesting pieces consists of the neolatin epic on Joan of Arc (De Gestis Ioanna Gallicae, ll. 199-214) by Valerand de la Varanne (Valeranus Varianus) which had first been printed separately in 1516″ (Schreiber).

The publication of a “women’s book” was always an opportunity for authors and editors to pay homage to women from whom they hoped to obtain patronage. Boccaccio had dedicated De Claris mulieribus to the lady of the house where he stayed in Naples in 1362 (Andreina Acciaioli, Countess of Altavilla) and Foresti to the widow of Matthias Corvinus (Beatrice d’Aragona) and to noblewomen of the court of Ferrara. Tixier dedicates his book (8 July 1521) to Jeanne de Vignacourt (Wignacourt; d. 1544), wife of the second Président au Parlement de Paris, Charles Guillard (1457–1537). The printer Simone de Colines cut a fine criblé initial ‘Q’ of their impaled arms (leaf 190v : dexter, Guillard; sinister, Vignacourt).

II : First and only edition of Lefevre d’Étaples’ almanach on the Martyrs of which only the portion devoted to the month of January was published. “Cette édition d’un seul mois du Martyrologe, donnée par Lefèvre d’Étaples, n’a ni date ni nom d’imprimeur, parce que ce n’est qu’un commencement de volume dont le non-achèvement fut sans doute causé par la mort de Henri, des presses de qui elle est sorti” (Renouard). “Fragment, probablement seul paru, du Martyrologe” (Moreau).

Of this rare edition USTC locates one single institutional copy (BnF).

Fugger provenance

This copy is from the library of Marcus Fugger (1529–1597), scion of the powerful banking family and trading family based in Augsburg. It is one of a large number of bindings he commissioned from Parisian binders in the early 1550s, the great majority in brown calf, simply decorated, with a small tool of a left hand holding a branch, upon which perches a bird (as here), or a crowned double–headed eagle. Marcus habitually wrote his name on the pastedown of the upper cover, but no date, or purchase details. His librarians often added a longitudinal title on vellum strips mounted in the compartments of the spine (as here), and/or inscribed a title in large capitals along the fore–edge.

The circumstances of these book purchases are not documented, neither in the Fugger archive in Dillingen nor in the surviving Öttingen-Wallerstein archive at Harburg. It is possible that Marcus Fugger himself visited Paris in these years, moving between the Fugger branches in France, Spain and the Netherlands. Alternatively, booksellers or other parties might have bought books for him and had them bound on his behalf, as was done for other book-collecting members of the Fugger family. The humanist Ludovicus Carinus (Kiel; 1496-1569), sometime preceptor in the Fugger house, is a potential agent for Marcus in the Paris book trade. From 1549–ca. 1551, Carinus accompanied Marcus’s younger brother, Hans Fugger (1531–1598), during his studies and travels in France; after 1555, he was settled in Basel. Once he took over his father’s business, in 1560, the pace of Marcus’s acquisitions sharply decreased. His purchases were now often bound in vellum, and more his elaborate bindings were now mainly commissioned from bookbinders in southern Germany.

A very attractive copy bound for a great German patron

Provenance :Marcus Fugger (1529–1597; signature on upper pastedown), by descent to – Philipp Fugger (1567–1601), by descent to –Marcus Philipp Fugger (1598–1620), by descent to – Marquard Fugger, Graf von Kirchberg und Weissenhorn (1596–1655) – Öttingen-Wallerstein, family library at Schloss Maihingen (armorial ink-stamp on title-page) – Eugen Wolfgang Karl Friedrich Joseph Notger, Fürst zu Öttingen-Öttingen und Öttingen-Wallerstein (1885–1969 [not traced in the Karl & Faber auctions in Munich, 1933-1935]) – Emil Offenbacher, Kew Gardens, NY– Cornelius J. Hauck (1893–1967), his bequest to – Cincinnati Historical Society Library (Christie’s New York, 27 June 2006, lot 241) – Kim Brooker (Bibliotheca Brookeriana, I, lot 86).

Content:

(ff. 3–14) Plutarchus, De Virtutibus mulierum traductio, per Alamanum Ranutinum ciuem Florentinum (Alamanno Rinuccini, 1426–1499); (ff. 14–160) Opus Iacobi Philippi Bergomensis de Claris mulieribus (Jacopo Filippo Foresti, 1434–1520); (ff. 160–176) Divae Catharinae Senensis vita … per loannem Pinum Tolosanum (Jean de Pins, 1470?–1537); (ff. 176–186) Aliud De illustribus foeminis opusculum, incerto authore (evidently based on Boccaccio; see L. Torretta, “Il ‘Liber de Claris Mulieribus’ di Giovanni Boccaccio… ,” in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 40 (1902), pp. 35–65); [inserted bifolium after f. 176 (i.e., yix.x inserted between y8 and z1, as published): De illustrissima et cordatissima Gallorum Regina, & Britonum duce Anna – Diversa eiusdem annae epitaphia / Naenia Annae; De nobilissima femina Caroleta Borboniensi, Nivernorum comite]; (ff. 186v–187) Vita Monegundis (Grégoire de Tours); (ff. 188–189) De Foeminis quae doctrina excelluerunt authore Baptista Fulgoso (Battista Fregoso, 1453–1504); (ff. 189–190), De Moribus muliervm … ex commentarijs Raphaelis Volaterrani (Raffaele Maffei, 1455–1522); (ff. 190–191) De Blancha Regis Castellae Filia & Fancorum regina – De illustrissima, et mirae sanctitatis femina D. Ioanna Francorum regina Regalis collegij Nauarrae fundatrice (Jean Tixier); (ff. 191–198) Capita qvaedam De Claris Mulieribus authore Rauisio Textore Niuernensi (Jean Tixier); (ff. 199–214 Valerandi Varanii De Gestis Ioannae virginis Franciae, egregiae bellatricis Libri quatuor (Valerand de la Varanne, fl. Ca. 1500); (ff. 214–217) De Sancta Clotilde, Burgundionvm regis filia, & Francorum regina; (ff. 217–219) De Sancta Genovefa, Virgine gallica, Parhhisiensium patrona.