Peter Bichsel   Fine Books

Marguerite de Valois. Les nouvelles de Marguerite, reine de Navarre. (Heptaméron françois). 3 vols.

With frontispiece, after B. A. Dunker engr. by Eichler, 73 copper plates after S. Freudenberger engr. by Delaunay, de Longueil, Halbou, Guttenberg a.o., and 144 engr. head- and end-pieces by or after B. A. Dunker. XVII, 78 SS., SS. (81)–275 SS. (recte 281, da Paginierung SS. 161–166 wiederholt) ; 2 Bll., 208 SS.; 2 Bll., 250 SS., 1 Bl. 8vo. Cont. full calf with gilt ornamentation on spine and boards. Edges gilt. – Bern, La Nouvelle Société Typographique, 1780–81.

Splendid Bernese edition of Marguerite of Navarra’s (1492–1549) collection of Boccaccio-style novels, published by Johann Rudolf von Sinner, chief librarian of the Bernese State Library. Written between 1542 and 1549, the novels were first published anonymously in 1558. They are a testimony of the Marguerite’s literary talent and a confession of her progressive, humanist attitude. The present edition, lavishly illustrated by the masters Balthasar Dunker (1746–1801) and Sigmund Freudenberger (1745–1801), is to be considered as the most magnificent book printed by the Bernese Typographic Society. “... and in effect this is a Swiss version of the sumptuous illustrated book of the later eighteenth century. It is obviously modelled on Gravelot’s “Decameron” and the Fermiers-Généraux La Fontaine. Indeed, it surpasses these precursors in the profusion of its designs” (Ray). – Cohen/de R. 680–81; Rümann 691; Lonchamp 1918; Sander 1278, Lanckoronska/Oehler II, 187–188; Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 1700 to 1914 (1982) I, 66. – Spine ends partly chipped. Corners partly bumped. Some leaves in vols. I and II with brown spots. – Best.-Nr. 24946