Beschreibung:

COMMINES, Philippe de (c. 1447-1511). Les Mémoires, sur les principaux faicts & gestes de Louys onziesme & de Charles huictiesme son fils Roys de France . Paris: Claude Bruneval for Jean de Bordeaux, 19 August 1581.
COMMINES, Philippe de (c. 1447-1511). Les Mémoires, sur les principaux faicts & gestes de Louys onziesme & de Charles huictiesme son fils Roys de France . Paris: Claude Bruneval for Jean de Bordeaux, 19 August 1581. 2° (342 x 219mm). Ruled in red throughout. Engraved publisher’s device on the title, engraved headpieces and engraved historiated initials. (Evenly browned throughout, a few short marginal tears, small repair in the title, repair to short marginal wormtrack in the last few gatherings.) Contemporary tan calf, the covers and spine superbly gilt à la fanfare by the ‘Atelier à la première palmette’ with an all-over design comprising a scrolling interlaced gilt ribbon forming reserved compartments filled with various tools including palmettes and cherubs, against a ground filled with various foliate tools (expertly rebacked preserving part of the original spine, corners repaired); later book-form black morocco case. Provenance : Philip III of Spain (1578-1621; manuscript note, signed Jehan Lhermite and fixed by four wax seals to the front pastedown, recording its use by Philip c.1594; manuscript cryptographic grid to front and rear pastedown perhaps in Philip’s hand) -- ‘Del Cubillo’ (inscription, on the front pastedown, in a neat 18th-century hand) -- Henri Beraldi (label; I, 1934, 7) – Coupel du Lude. A MAJOR PRIMARY SOURCE FOR 15TH-CENTURY EUROPEAN HISTORY IN A WONDERFUL À LA FANFARE BINDING BY THE ‘ATELIER À LA PREMIÈRE PALMETTE’. Philippe de Commines was a writer and diplomat at the courts of Burgundy and France. Saint-Beuve called him ‘the first truly modern writer’, and others ‘the first critical and philosophical historian since classical times’ ( Oxford Companion to French Literature ). Neither a chronicler nor a historian in the conventional sense, his analysis of the contemporary political scene made him virtually unique in his own time. Commines’ Mémoires, completed in 1498 and first published in 1524 in Paris, are regarded as a major primary source for 15th-century European history and a historical record of immense importance. The work is divided into several parts, the first six relating to events from the beginning of Commines’ career up to the death of King Louis XI. The last two parts deal with the Italian wars, ending in the death of King Charles VIII of France. Hobson, Les Reliures à la fanfare , p. 21, n.124a.