MANTUAN Baptiste La Parthenice de Mariane de Baptiste Mantuan poete theologue de l’ordre de nostre dame des carmes trâslatee de latin en françoys.

Bechtel, B4 ; Brunet, III, 1376 ; Baudrier, I, 44 & XII, 127 (with illustration) ; Gültlingen, Lyon, I, p. 85, no. 104 ; Brun, p. 244. See sale S. Brunschwig, 1955, lot 473 (other copy). Not in Mortimer.

First and only translation in verses by Jacques de Mortières.

Written by Baptiste Mantuan, also known as Battista Spagnoli (1447-1516), he was one of the most renowned Latin poets of his time with an immense output of poetry of around 50,000 verses. Highly regarded by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spencer and John Milton, Erasmus described this important poet of Italian humanism as “the Christian Virgil”. Mantuan was revered from the time of his death and was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1885. Mantuan entered the Carmelite order in Mantua and made his religious profession in 1464; a talented man, he was elected prior general of the congregation in 1513.

The 1523 edition, carefully printed in Lyon, is illustrated with 2 large figures (Holy Family, repeated), the arms of Marguerite de France, and 33 woodcut vignettes illustrating mostly the life of Christ. The title is decorated with a large vignette with the printer’s mark.

This edition is very rare in institutional libraries; Gültlingen locates 3 copies in France (Lyon, BM; Paris, Arsenal; Paris, BnF) and 1 copy in the UK (London, BL). USTC does not locate any copies in the United States. Apart from this copy and the Brunschwig copy, we have found only one additional copy at auction (copy from the Hoe and Froissart collections).

A very good copy, complete with the leaf with the acrostic poem with the name of Marguerite de France, author of the Héptameron, to whom the work is dedicated by the translator.

Provenance: book plates from Chateau de Valençay (formely home to Talleyrand), Antoine Danyau, and F. Desq (his sale at Drouot, 1988).