MARCILE (Théodore)

Lot 22
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Estimation :
1500 - 2000 EUR
MARCILE (Théodore)
Historia strenarum, Orationibus adversariis explicata, & carmine. Paris, Étienne Prévôteau, heir of Guillaume Morel, 1596. In-8, 72 pp.: flexible wove paper, triple gilt fillet, historiated medallion gilt in the center (different scene on each plate), smooth spine decorated with double fillets and repeated fleurs-de-lis, title in ink, gilt edges (contemporary binding). Original edition. Curious essay on the strenna, divided into two speeches: Contra usum strenarum and Pro usu strenarum. It is followed by some poetic pieces, four of which are partly printed in Greek. Théodore Marcile (1548-1617), a learned philologist born in Arnhem in the Netherlands, studied in Deventer and then taught in Toulouse before succeeding Jean Passerat at the chair of Letters at the Collège de France. His Histoire des étrennes was published one year before the Kalendae Januariae, a famous collection of Latin poems that Passerat composed in January of each year, from 1570 to 1596, to offer them to his patron, Henri de Mesmes. A very pure, ruled, gilt vellum copy decorated on the plates with an oval medallion each presenting a biblical scene: the Crucifixion and the Annunciation. These two scenes are emblems of the Jesuit College of Paris, the second plate bearing the monogram IHS surmounted by a cross. The congregation's manuscript ex-libris is inscribed at the top of the title: Collegii Paris Societis Iesu. From the libraries Hippolyte Destailleur (1891, no. 2002), then Francis Kettaneh (ex-libris).
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