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Details
MACHIAVELLI, Niccolo (1469-1527). L’Art de la Guerre. Translated by Jean Charrier. Paris: Jean Barbé, 1546.
2° (330 x 201mm). Woodcut of a battle-scene on title, 14 pp. of typographic figures, ornamental initials from several sets, large printer’s device at end, ruled in red. (Occasional minor stain.) Contemporary French calf gilt, sides with central arabesque with painted band, frame of gilt and blind fillets, fleuron at corners, fleuron in spine compartments, gilt edges (expertly rebacked with original backstrip, new endpapers, a few other expert repairs, minor stains). Provenance: Ricardo Heredia, comte de Benahavis (1831-96; monogram booklabel) -- Francis Pottiée-Sperry (sale Sotheby’s Paris, 27 November 2003, lot 112).
FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH, TRANSLATED BY JEAN CHARRIER AND DEDICATED TO THE DAUPHIN, THE FUTURE HENRY II.
The Art of War became one of the most respected military treatises of the 16th century; Charles V reputedly kept a copy by his bedside, and within fifty years of its first publication the work had been translated into almost every major European language. In it Machiavelli states that an army should not be made up of professional knights, condottieri or mercenaries, but of citizen-soldiers. Montaigne valued Machiavelli very highly, placing his strategic genius beside that of Caesar, Polybius and Commines.
The large woodcut historiated initials also appeared in the first French edition of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of the same year (see lot 49).
Ricardo Heredia assembled a large collection of books and purchased, in 1872, Salva’s library. The Spanish government intended to buy Heredia’s library and even approved a budget to do so, but it was eventually sold at auction. A tall copy in a contemporary French binding.
Brunet III, 1277; Brun, p. 242; Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires, III, 58.
2° (330 x 201mm). Woodcut of a battle-scene on title, 14 pp. of typographic figures, ornamental initials from several sets, large printer’s device at end, ruled in red. (Occasional minor stain.) Contemporary French calf gilt, sides with central arabesque with painted band, frame of gilt and blind fillets, fleuron at corners, fleuron in spine compartments, gilt edges (expertly rebacked with original backstrip, new endpapers, a few other expert repairs, minor stains). Provenance: Ricardo Heredia, comte de Benahavis (1831-96; monogram booklabel) -- Francis Pottiée-Sperry (sale Sotheby’s Paris, 27 November 2003, lot 112).
FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH, TRANSLATED BY JEAN CHARRIER AND DEDICATED TO THE DAUPHIN, THE FUTURE HENRY II.
The Art of War became one of the most respected military treatises of the 16th century; Charles V reputedly kept a copy by his bedside, and within fifty years of its first publication the work had been translated into almost every major European language. In it Machiavelli states that an army should not be made up of professional knights, condottieri or mercenaries, but of citizen-soldiers. Montaigne valued Machiavelli very highly, placing his strategic genius beside that of Caesar, Polybius and Commines.
The large woodcut historiated initials also appeared in the first French edition of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of the same year (see lot 49).
Ricardo Heredia assembled a large collection of books and purchased, in 1872, Salva’s library. The Spanish government intended to buy Heredia’s library and even approved a budget to do so, but it was eventually sold at auction. A tall copy in a contemporary French binding.
Brunet III, 1277; Brun, p. 242; Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires, III, 58.
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