Details
[Calendrier des Bergers]. Icy est le compost et kalendrier des Bergiers Nouuellement refait et austrement compose que nestoit parauant. Paris: Guy Marchant [in part for Antoine Vérard], 18 April 1493.
Chancery folio, 257 x 185 mm. (10 1/8 x 7 1/4 in.), dark blue morocco, gilt ARMS OF BARON JÉRÔME-FRÉDERIC PICHON, the shield suspended from a tree (Guigard II, 398) at center of both covers within triple gilt fillet border, spine in seven gilt-panelled compartments, board edges and turn-ins gilt, edges marbled and gilt, bound by Bauzonnet-Trautz in 1844 (according to a ms. note by Pichon(?) on verso of front flyleaf: "rendu par Bauz(onn)et 8 Janvier 1844"), slight wear to corners, raised bands and extremities of spine, upper inner hinge cracked, old crease to gutter of title leaf, small repair to upper margin, 1/4-inch filled wormhole through A1-4, a few other tiny wormholes through first few leaves, five leaves (b8, C1, F2, F6, and X1) with repaired tears affecting text or woodcuts (affected letters skilfully touched up in ink), cropping to woodcut borders on A3r, F4v and L5v, approximately six leaves with small marginal repairs, a few woodcuts with traces of old ink doodling, occasional light staining or soiling, a few initials smudged, washed and pressed.
Collation: A8 b8 C-E6 F-G8 X2 H8 I-N6. Contents: A1r title with metalcut printer's device (BMC III, Polain 128), A1v blank; A2r-A8v prologue, explanation of calendar, tables of moon- and sunrises, les ditz des mois, etc.; b1r-b8v Calendar, C1r-C3r table of solar and lunar eclipses from 1491 to 1549, C3v-C4r Latin verses; C4v-F2v part 2, L'arbre des vices and Les peines d'enfer; F3r-G8v part 3, Science salutaire et l'arbre ou champ des vertus, X1r blank, X1v-X2r La tour de sapience (printed lengthwise across both pages), X2v [signed "H"] continuation of the text from G8v; H1r-H7r [part 4], La physique et regime de santé des bergiers; H7v-L1v [part 5], L'astrologie des bergiers; L2r-N5v [part 6], Varia, including the phizonomie [sic, i.e., physiognomy] des bergiers, the calculation of the hours of the night, the mysteries of the night, Sebastian Brant's poem on the aerolite of Ensisheim (M1v), poems of the 12 months, les dits des oiseaux, the "ballades de la mort", etc., N6r Le combat du limaçon, colophon, Imprime a Paris par Guiot Marchant...Lan: M.cccc.iiiixx et xiii Le xviiie iour Davril, N6v blank. 90 leaves, with signatures. Types: 5:180G (first line of title and heading on A8v, 2:107B (text), Maurand 1:99B (quire B), 6:112/113G (headings to woodcuts on F4v-F7r), 12:82B (inscriptions within woodcuts on F4v-F6v, F7v-F8r, and on the base of the Tour de Sapience,X1v-X2r). 38-39 lines. Red printing in the Calendar (quire b). Large opening xylographic initial I (107 mm.), spaces for 7-line and smaller initials, the first two with guide-letters. 65 woodcuts in the text, several in two compartments, one (the colonne ardant on M1r) heightened in red ink by the rubricator, the calendar with 12 small woodcut head-pieces showing the occupations of the months, each lettered "KL", and 12 vertical woodcuts showing saints, printer's device on title and pages A2r and A3r within woodcut ornamental and figurative borders, 15 eclipse diagrams (each with four disks), other text diagrams. Rubricated: crude Lombard initials, paragraph marks and capital strokes supplied in red.
THIRD EDITION OF THE FIRST FRENCH ALMANACH. First printed by Marchant in 1491, the enormously influential Calendrier des Bergers is a compendium of popular knowledge and beliefs of the late fifteenth-century. Following the calendar are sections on theology and morals, health, medicine (anatomy and phlebotomy), astronomy, astrology, the science of physiognomy, and miraculous occurences, consisting of a patchwork of traditional texts. That the elaborately and expensively printed Calendrier was intended for a wealthy urban audience rather than for a largely illiterate peasantry is evident not only from the romanticization of the shepherd as the possessor of universal wisdom, but also from the conspicuous absence of any discussion of agriculture, of how to predict the weather, or of when to plant, sow, or reap. Partly in verse and including passages in Latin, the text is principally devoted to cosmology and the fate of man, who is exhorted to make his primary concern the preparation for death.
The woodcuts depict shepherds under the stars, the seven tortures of hell, anatomical man, the figures of the zodiac and allegorical figures of the planets juxtaposed with genre scenes representing their different influences, the sphere of the heavens, death in various guises, etc. With the exception of three cuts -- of the author writing on A2r, a woman with folded arms on G4r, and the mouth of hell and death on his horse on G6r, all of which appeared in Marchant's 1492 Danse macabre -- the woodcuts appear to have been specifically commissioned for this work. 13 woodcuts (including the three Danse macabre cuts and the double-leaf Tour de Sapience) are new to this edition.
The seven Marchant pre-1501 editions (Marchant also published a Calendrier des Bergères in 1499) bear witness to the work's immediate popularity. It was widely imitated, first by the Genevan Jean Bellot in 1500, then in Paris and Lyons. Vérard published a Scottish dialect translation in 1503; it was translated into English in 1506, and continued to be reprinted and adapted, in English and French, well into the eighteenth century.
Four copies are known of this third edition, apparently the only one for which Marchand printed a few copies on vellum for Vérard: two of these copies, in the Angers Bibliothèque Municipale and the Bibliothèque Nationale (the latter with a defective title-leaf), are presentation copies illuminated in the Vérard atelier. The other paper copy, at Harvard, lacks 6 leaves. The collation in GW does not correspond to the present copy in two respects: the collation cites 89 leaves, with the Tour de Sapience cut printed on a single instead of a double inserted leaf, and the signing of quire b is given as "B". Quire b, in fact, corresponds more closely to GW's description of the same quire in Marchand's succeeding edition, of 18 July 1493 (GW 5909). Comparison of the present copy with the copy of GW 5909 at the Pierpont Morgan Library shows, however, that while the two share the same or a very similar typeface and the same woodcuts, they are from different typesettings. Corrections in the GW 5909 setting indicate that it was evidently copied from GW 5908, the later edition correcting, for example, an error on fol. b2r, in which "s. george pape" was printed (in black) instead of "s. gregoire pape" (in red). Based on the GW description, quire b in the Harvard copy of the present edition was until lately incorrectly thought to have been supplied from GW 5909, and it is possible that the GW description of the Bibliothèque Nationale copy as having "Lage b aus Nr. 5909" is a similar error.
Of Marchand's previous editions, 2 May 1491, and [after 2 May] 1491, only a single imperfect copy is known of the first, and two copies, one imperfect, of the second. GW records no more than four copies of each of the five later incunable editions. Of these, only one, the Geneva 1497 edition, was at the time of publication (1934) still presumed to be in private hands. THIS IS THE FIRST COPY OF ANY INCUNABLE EDITION OF THE CALENDRIER TO COME ON THE MARKET IN FIFTY-FIVE YEARS.
HC 5583; C 3428; GW 5908; Pellechet 3905; IGI 2371; Claudin I, pp. 360-378; Macfarlane 24; Van Praet, Vélins du Roi, III, p. 75-76; Goff C-54.
Provenance:
1. Lionel, fourth Earl of Dysart (1701-1770).
2. Jean-Baptiste Huzard l'aîné, veterinarian, author of a "Notice historique et bibliographique sur les éditions et les traductions de l''Instruction des Bergers'", in L. J. M. d'Aubenton, Instruction pour les bergers et pour les propriétaires de troupeaux, Paris, an X [1802], ink-stamped signature on verso of title ("Huzard de l'Institut") (sales, March-June 1843)
3. Baron Jérôme-Fréderic Pichon, armorial binding.
4. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, bookplate (sale, Paris, 26-31 May 1879, lot 466).
5. Thomas Brooke, bookplate (purchased by Bernard Quaritch, booksellers, collation and condition notes in pencil on lower free endpaper, signed and dated E? Talbot pro B. Quaritch, 2 June 1921.
6. Grace Whitney Hoff, bookplate (her library catalogue [Paris 1933], no. 665.
7. Édouard Rahir, bookplate (sale, Paris, part 2, 6 May 1931, lot 274).
Chancery folio, 257 x 185 mm. (10 1/8 x 7 1/4 in.), dark blue morocco, gilt ARMS OF BARON JÉRÔME-FRÉDERIC PICHON, the shield suspended from a tree (Guigard II, 398) at center of both covers within triple gilt fillet border, spine in seven gilt-panelled compartments, board edges and turn-ins gilt, edges marbled and gilt, bound by Bauzonnet-Trautz in 1844 (according to a ms. note by Pichon(?) on verso of front flyleaf: "rendu par Bauz(onn)et 8 Janvier 1844"), slight wear to corners, raised bands and extremities of spine, upper inner hinge cracked, old crease to gutter of title leaf, small repair to upper margin, 1/4-inch filled wormhole through A1-4, a few other tiny wormholes through first few leaves, five leaves (b8, C1, F2, F6, and X1) with repaired tears affecting text or woodcuts (affected letters skilfully touched up in ink), cropping to woodcut borders on A3r, F4v and L5v, approximately six leaves with small marginal repairs, a few woodcuts with traces of old ink doodling, occasional light staining or soiling, a few initials smudged, washed and pressed.
Collation: A8 b8 C-E6 F-G8 X2 H8 I-N6. Contents: A1r title with metalcut printer's device (BMC III, Polain 128), A1v blank; A2r-A8v prologue, explanation of calendar, tables of moon- and sunrises, les ditz des mois, etc.; b1r-b8v Calendar, C1r-C3r table of solar and lunar eclipses from 1491 to 1549, C3v-C4r Latin verses; C4v-F2v part 2, L'arbre des vices and Les peines d'enfer; F3r-G8v part 3, Science salutaire et l'arbre ou champ des vertus, X1r blank, X1v-X2r La tour de sapience (printed lengthwise across both pages), X2v [signed "H"] continuation of the text from G8v; H1r-H7r [part 4], La physique et regime de santé des bergiers; H7v-L1v [part 5], L'astrologie des bergiers; L2r-N5v [part 6], Varia, including the phizonomie [sic, i.e., physiognomy] des bergiers, the calculation of the hours of the night, the mysteries of the night, Sebastian Brant's poem on the aerolite of Ensisheim (M1v), poems of the 12 months, les dits des oiseaux, the "ballades de la mort", etc., N6r Le combat du limaçon, colophon, Imprime a Paris par Guiot Marchant...Lan: M.cccc.iiiixx et xiii Le xviiie iour Davril, N6v blank. 90 leaves, with signatures. Types: 5:180G (first line of title and heading on A8v, 2:107B (text), Maurand 1:99B (quire B), 6:112/113G (headings to woodcuts on F4v-F7r), 12:82B (inscriptions within woodcuts on F4v-F6v, F7v-F8r, and on the base of the Tour de Sapience,X1v-X2r). 38-39 lines. Red printing in the Calendar (quire b). Large opening xylographic initial I (107 mm.), spaces for 7-line and smaller initials, the first two with guide-letters. 65 woodcuts in the text, several in two compartments, one (the colonne ardant on M1r) heightened in red ink by the rubricator, the calendar with 12 small woodcut head-pieces showing the occupations of the months, each lettered "KL", and 12 vertical woodcuts showing saints, printer's device on title and pages A2r and A3r within woodcut ornamental and figurative borders, 15 eclipse diagrams (each with four disks), other text diagrams. Rubricated: crude Lombard initials, paragraph marks and capital strokes supplied in red.
THIRD EDITION OF THE FIRST FRENCH ALMANACH. First printed by Marchant in 1491, the enormously influential Calendrier des Bergers is a compendium of popular knowledge and beliefs of the late fifteenth-century. Following the calendar are sections on theology and morals, health, medicine (anatomy and phlebotomy), astronomy, astrology, the science of physiognomy, and miraculous occurences, consisting of a patchwork of traditional texts. That the elaborately and expensively printed Calendrier was intended for a wealthy urban audience rather than for a largely illiterate peasantry is evident not only from the romanticization of the shepherd as the possessor of universal wisdom, but also from the conspicuous absence of any discussion of agriculture, of how to predict the weather, or of when to plant, sow, or reap. Partly in verse and including passages in Latin, the text is principally devoted to cosmology and the fate of man, who is exhorted to make his primary concern the preparation for death.
The woodcuts depict shepherds under the stars, the seven tortures of hell, anatomical man, the figures of the zodiac and allegorical figures of the planets juxtaposed with genre scenes representing their different influences, the sphere of the heavens, death in various guises, etc. With the exception of three cuts -- of the author writing on A2r, a woman with folded arms on G4r, and the mouth of hell and death on his horse on G6r, all of which appeared in Marchant's 1492 Danse macabre -- the woodcuts appear to have been specifically commissioned for this work. 13 woodcuts (including the three Danse macabre cuts and the double-leaf Tour de Sapience) are new to this edition.
The seven Marchant pre-1501 editions (Marchant also published a Calendrier des Bergères in 1499) bear witness to the work's immediate popularity. It was widely imitated, first by the Genevan Jean Bellot in 1500, then in Paris and Lyons. Vérard published a Scottish dialect translation in 1503; it was translated into English in 1506, and continued to be reprinted and adapted, in English and French, well into the eighteenth century.
Four copies are known of this third edition, apparently the only one for which Marchand printed a few copies on vellum for Vérard: two of these copies, in the Angers Bibliothèque Municipale and the Bibliothèque Nationale (the latter with a defective title-leaf), are presentation copies illuminated in the Vérard atelier. The other paper copy, at Harvard, lacks 6 leaves. The collation in GW does not correspond to the present copy in two respects: the collation cites 89 leaves, with the Tour de Sapience cut printed on a single instead of a double inserted leaf, and the signing of quire b is given as "B". Quire b, in fact, corresponds more closely to GW's description of the same quire in Marchand's succeeding edition, of 18 July 1493 (GW 5909). Comparison of the present copy with the copy of GW 5909 at the Pierpont Morgan Library shows, however, that while the two share the same or a very similar typeface and the same woodcuts, they are from different typesettings. Corrections in the GW 5909 setting indicate that it was evidently copied from GW 5908, the later edition correcting, for example, an error on fol. b2r, in which "s. george pape" was printed (in black) instead of "s. gregoire pape" (in red). Based on the GW description, quire b in the Harvard copy of the present edition was until lately incorrectly thought to have been supplied from GW 5909, and it is possible that the GW description of the Bibliothèque Nationale copy as having "Lage b aus Nr. 5909" is a similar error.
Of Marchand's previous editions, 2 May 1491, and [after 2 May] 1491, only a single imperfect copy is known of the first, and two copies, one imperfect, of the second. GW records no more than four copies of each of the five later incunable editions. Of these, only one, the Geneva 1497 edition, was at the time of publication (1934) still presumed to be in private hands. THIS IS THE FIRST COPY OF ANY INCUNABLE EDITION OF THE CALENDRIER TO COME ON THE MARKET IN FIFTY-FIVE YEARS.
HC 5583; C 3428; GW 5908; Pellechet 3905; IGI 2371; Claudin I, pp. 360-378; Macfarlane 24; Van Praet, Vélins du Roi, III, p. 75-76; Goff C-54.
Provenance:
1. Lionel, fourth Earl of Dysart (1701-1770).
2. Jean-Baptiste Huzard l'aîné, veterinarian, author of a "Notice historique et bibliographique sur les éditions et les traductions de l''Instruction des Bergers'", in L. J. M. d'Aubenton, Instruction pour les bergers et pour les propriétaires de troupeaux, Paris, an X [1802], ink-stamped signature on verso of title ("Huzard de l'Institut") (sales, March-June 1843)
3. Baron Jérôme-Fréderic Pichon, armorial binding.
4. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, bookplate (sale, Paris, 26-31 May 1879, lot 466).
5. Thomas Brooke, bookplate (purchased by Bernard Quaritch, booksellers, collation and condition notes in pencil on lower free endpaper, signed and dated E? Talbot pro B. Quaritch, 2 June 1921.
6. Grace Whitney Hoff, bookplate (her library catalogue [Paris 1933], no. 665.
7. Édouard Rahir, bookplate (sale, Paris, part 2, 6 May 1931, lot 274).