Details
TORY, Geofroy (Bourges ca. 1480 - 1533 Paris). Champ fleury. Au quel est contenu Lart & Science de la deue & vraye Proportion des Lettres Attiques ... proportionnees selon le Corps & Visage humain. Paris: printed for the author and Gilles Gourmont, 28th April 1529.
Small 2° (250 x 170mm). Collation: A8 (title with publisher's pot cassé device and woodcut decorative border, table of contents with woodcut royal arms, royal privilege with small woodcut initial, author's preface addressed to Amateurs de bonnes Lettres including small woodcut initial, index, author's second preface Aux Lecteurs); B-F6 (book I on the French language, with one large woodcut decorative initial L, woodcut illustration Hercules Gallicus signed with the Lorraine cross and dated 1526, and woodcut of a hyacinth, C4v blank, book II on Attic letters and their relation to the human face and body, with 40 woodcut illustrations and diagrams, including the Triumph of Apollo and his Muses and the Capture of Bacchus, Ceres and Venus, F6v blank); G-M6 (book III on the construction of antique capitals, 74 woodcuts and diagrams, including a large version of the pot cassé device and other allegorical illustrations, M6v blank); N6 O8 (appendix on exotic and invented alphabets, with 12 woodcut decorative initials, 15 pages of woodcut alphabets, accents and monograms, above colophon the pot cassé device within a floral border, O8v blank). 88 leaves. Roman and Greek type, 50 lines and headline, side-notes. Binding: early 19th-century blind-tooled calf over pasteboard, gilt spine (rebacked, original backstrip laid down), signed by the Royal bookbinder Simier.
Provenance: Jacques Thiboust de Quantilly (1492-1556, secretary to François I and Marguérite de Valois), woodcut bookplate stamped on verso of title; Lessing Rosenwald (purchased from Rosenbach of Philadelphia), bookplate; Library of Congress (sold as duplicate).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE. It contains a long essay on language and a plea for the use of French, a history of the origin of roman letter forms and an analysis of their construction, written in order to improve on Pacioli (1509) and Dürer (1525). Tory's great reputation as an artist, author, classicist, translator, editor, bookseller and publisher is fully earned; his activities in these roles are documented in detail, but there is no physical evidence that he was ever a printer, even though François I later appointed him imprimeur du roi. Tory was undoubtedly the author and publisher of Champfleury as well as the designer of its illustrations, but the identities of the artist responsible for cutting the blocks and the printer remain unresolved despite numerous attempts made by bibliographers from Auguste Bernard (1857) onwards.
Tory begins his treatise by relating how he was thinking about some lettering he had designed for Jean Grolier's house when it occurred to him that he should publish his ideas for the greater good. His intended audience is goldsmiths, weavers, glass painters and other artists.
FINE ASSOCIATION COPY. Tory and Thiboust were close contemporaries, who must have known each other well as they are linked in three significant ways: both hailed from Bourges, both were well connected at the Royal court and both were passionate about the French language, spelling reform and the art of writing. Published verse, a sonnet by Jean Milon and an epigram by Jean Salomon, praises Thiboust for his knowledge of French grammar in particular and his love of letters in general. See Hippolyte Boyer, Un ménage littéraire en Berry au XVIe siècle. Jacques Thiboust et Jeanne de La Font (Bourges: 1859) pp. 51-52, 64-67, pl. 2. Thiboust was the first Frenchman to employ a printed bookplate (see Albert Kolb in Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1961, pp.249-54); books from his library are recorded in Bourges, Paris and New Haven. Association copies of Champfleury are likely to be OF THE GREATEST RARITY, none seems to have been recorded on the market in recent decades. Mortimer French 524; Bernard Tory pp. 12-27, 81-84, 189-196; Besterman 100; Cicognara 362.
Small 2° (250 x 170mm). Collation: A8 (title with publisher's pot cassé device and woodcut decorative border, table of contents with woodcut royal arms, royal privilege with small woodcut initial, author's preface addressed to Amateurs de bonnes Lettres including small woodcut initial, index, author's second preface Aux Lecteurs); B-F6 (book I on the French language, with one large woodcut decorative initial L, woodcut illustration Hercules Gallicus signed with the Lorraine cross and dated 1526, and woodcut of a hyacinth, C4v blank, book II on Attic letters and their relation to the human face and body, with 40 woodcut illustrations and diagrams, including the Triumph of Apollo and his Muses and the Capture of Bacchus, Ceres and Venus, F6v blank); G-M6 (book III on the construction of antique capitals, 74 woodcuts and diagrams, including a large version of the pot cassé device and other allegorical illustrations, M6v blank); N6 O8 (appendix on exotic and invented alphabets, with 12 woodcut decorative initials, 15 pages of woodcut alphabets, accents and monograms, above colophon the pot cassé device within a floral border, O8v blank). 88 leaves. Roman and Greek type, 50 lines and headline, side-notes. Binding: early 19th-century blind-tooled calf over pasteboard, gilt spine (rebacked, original backstrip laid down), signed by the Royal bookbinder Simier.
Provenance: Jacques Thiboust de Quantilly (1492-1556, secretary to François I and Marguérite de Valois), woodcut bookplate stamped on verso of title; Lessing Rosenwald (purchased from Rosenbach of Philadelphia), bookplate; Library of Congress (sold as duplicate).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE. It contains a long essay on language and a plea for the use of French, a history of the origin of roman letter forms and an analysis of their construction, written in order to improve on Pacioli (1509) and Dürer (1525). Tory's great reputation as an artist, author, classicist, translator, editor, bookseller and publisher is fully earned; his activities in these roles are documented in detail, but there is no physical evidence that he was ever a printer, even though François I later appointed him imprimeur du roi. Tory was undoubtedly the author and publisher of Champfleury as well as the designer of its illustrations, but the identities of the artist responsible for cutting the blocks and the printer remain unresolved despite numerous attempts made by bibliographers from Auguste Bernard (1857) onwards.
Tory begins his treatise by relating how he was thinking about some lettering he had designed for Jean Grolier's house when it occurred to him that he should publish his ideas for the greater good. His intended audience is goldsmiths, weavers, glass painters and other artists.
FINE ASSOCIATION COPY. Tory and Thiboust were close contemporaries, who must have known each other well as they are linked in three significant ways: both hailed from Bourges, both were well connected at the Royal court and both were passionate about the French language, spelling reform and the art of writing. Published verse, a sonnet by Jean Milon and an epigram by Jean Salomon, praises Thiboust for his knowledge of French grammar in particular and his love of letters in general. See Hippolyte Boyer, Un ménage littéraire en Berry au XVIe siècle. Jacques Thiboust et Jeanne de La Font (Bourges: 1859) pp. 51-52, 64-67, pl. 2. Thiboust was the first Frenchman to employ a printed bookplate (see Albert Kolb in Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1961, pp.249-54); books from his library are recorded in Bourges, Paris and New Haven. Association copies of Champfleury are likely to be OF THE GREATEST RARITY, none seems to have been recorded on the market in recent decades. Mortimer French 524; Bernard Tory pp. 12-27, 81-84, 189-196; Besterman 100; Cicognara 362.