Details
ESTIENNE, HENRI. Proiect du livre intitulé De la précellence du langage François. Paris: Mamert Patisson 1579. 8vo, 165 x 103 mm. (6 1/2 x 4 1/16 in.), dark blue straight-grained morocco, covers with wide gilt roll-tooled border and inner gilt-dotted frame with alternating diamond and circle tools, "RENOUARD" gilt-lettered at bottom of upper cover, flat spine in six gilt-panelled compartments, black morocco lettering-piece in the second, the remainder gilt with lyre tool, board edges and turn-ins gilt, g.e., brightly colored striped silk liners, one pair of vellum flyleaves, bound for Antoine-Augustin Renouard c. 1793; extremities rubbed, two short marginal tears to a3, upper edges trifle dust-soiled. FIRST EDITION, RULED IN RED THROUGHOUT, woodcut printer's device on title (Schreiber 27), initials and tail-pieces.
ANTOINE-AUGUSTIN RENOUARD's copy of the third of three works by Henri Estienne II defending the French language. It is the only one pritned in Paris, where Estienne had fled to Paris to escape prosecution by the Geneva Council following the publication in 1578 of his anonymously printed Deux Dialogues du nouveau langage français italianizé (the second work in the trilogy), a diatribe against the fashionable borrowing of Italian words and phrases at the French court. Of the three works, "this is the most 'modern'...from the standpoint of philological science. Estienne not merely recommends the use of French along with Latin as a literary language...but also argues that the qualities peculiar to French make it superior even to Latin as a literary medium"--Schreiber Estienne 250; Renouard Estienne 181, no. 3.
Provenance:
1. PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR: "De Buron 1579 Dono henr. stepha[n]i" inscribed on front flyleaf in a contemporary hand
2. Antoine-Augustin Renouard, signature on same flyleaf, dated 1793, binding as above, bookplate (sale, Paris. 20 November 1854, lot 823)
3. Robert Hoe, bookplate (sale, Anderson Auction Company, New York, part II, 8 January 1912, lot 1226.
ANTOINE-AUGUSTIN RENOUARD's copy of the third of three works by Henri Estienne II defending the French language. It is the only one pritned in Paris, where Estienne had fled to Paris to escape prosecution by the Geneva Council following the publication in 1578 of his anonymously printed Deux Dialogues du nouveau langage français italianizé (the second work in the trilogy), a diatribe against the fashionable borrowing of Italian words and phrases at the French court. Of the three works, "this is the most 'modern'...from the standpoint of philological science. Estienne not merely recommends the use of French along with Latin as a literary language...but also argues that the qualities peculiar to French make it superior even to Latin as a literary medium"--Schreiber Estienne 250; Renouard Estienne 181, no. 3.
Provenance:
1. PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR: "De Buron 1579 Dono henr. stepha[n]i" inscribed on front flyleaf in a contemporary hand
2. Antoine-Augustin Renouard, signature on same flyleaf, dated 1793, binding as above, bookplate (sale, Paris. 20 November 1854, lot 823)
3. Robert Hoe, bookplate (sale, Anderson Auction Company, New York, part II, 8 January 1912, lot 1226.