Beschreibung:

Juvencus, Gaius Vettius Aquilinus. C. Iuvenci, Coelii Seculii, Aratoris sacra poësis. Summa cura et diligentia recognita et collate. Lyon: Jean I de Tournes & Guillaume Gazeau, 1553
An anthology, intended for students, of works by three early Christian poets: the Historia evangelica, by Juvencus; Paschale opus, by Sedulius, and the In Apostolarum acta, by Arator. The edition is dedicated to the humanist Cardinal Georges d’Armagnac (ca. 1501–1585) by an anonymous editor, who begins with complaints about the decline of interest in these old models of pure Latin, and the constant thrust for novelty (i.e., the modern poems of Sannazaro and Vida). Nonetheless, reprints were issued by De Tournes at Lyon 1566 and Geneva in 1588.
This copy is from the library of the Lyonese jurist Benoît Le Court (d. 1559), whose family arms (D’azur à trois molettes d’or, 2 et 1) are gilt-tooled within a panel stamp on each cover. These arms were not unknown to Guigard, but misconstrued in his Nouvel Armorial des Bibliophiles (1890; II, pp. 121, 143). They seem to have been first identified by Georges Péricaud and first reproduced in André Steyart’s Nouvelle histoire de Lyon (Lyon, 1899; III, p. 64), after which Le Court was lauded in Julien Baudrier’s Armorial des bibliophiles de Lyonnais, Forez, Beaujolais et Dombes (Lyon, 1907; pp. 347–349) and elevated into the pantheon of French bibliophiles. No inventory of Le Court’s library has been found, and a current project to virtually “reconstitute” it proceeds from the evidence of binding stamps and ownership inscriptions, spearheaded by Hélène Lanier, who catalogued 202 titles in 85 volumes in her 2018 doctoral dissertation, “Benoît Court: un juriste humaniste et ses livres” (Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2018). Three armorial stamps were reproduced by Baudrier. Le Court’s inscriptions take various forms, some giving his name and town (e.g. Benedictus Curtius Lugdunensis), others his name and birthplace (e.g. Benedicti Curtii Symphoriani et amicorum), and often a record is made of the price paid for the book or for the binding (e.g. Emptus troys livres | 35 s[olz]).
This volume published in 1553 is one of the very last to be bound for Benoît Le Court. No other use of the panel stamp has been traced.
16mo (121 x 73 mm). Italic types with roman, 28 lines plus headline. collation: a-v8: 160 leaves (v7 and v8 blank), paginated [1]–316, [4]. Type-ornament headpieces, woodcut initials, printer’s device on title-page. Ruled in red. (Some marginal finger-soiling.)
binding: Lyonese brown calf (125 x 78 mm), ca. 1555, for Benoît Le Court, gilt fillet around sides, panel stamp of interlaced double fillets, in center a shield containing Le Court’s arms, spine with 4 full and 2 half bands, gilt rosettes in each compartment, edges gilt and gauffered. (Joints repaired, extremities rubbed.)
provenance: Benoît Le Court (d. 1559; armorial supralibros) — Librairie Damascène Morgand, Paris (Répertoire méthodique … Première partie [1893], item 2727, FF 100; Bulletin mensuel, Nouvelle série, No. 6, Avril 1908, item 338, FF 500); Livres dans de riches reliures des XVIe, XVIIe, XVIIIe et XIXe siècles [1910], item 44 & Pl. 10, FF 650; Bulletin mensuel, Nouvelle série, no. 20, Janvier 1920, item 321) — Édouard Rahir, Paris (Henri Baudoin & Fernand Lair-Dubreuil with Francisque Lefrançois, Paris, 7–9 May 1930, lot 123), purchased by — Librairie Lardanchet, Paris (FF 4900) — Anton W.M. Mensing (1866–1936; Sotheby’s, London, 15–17 December 1936, lot 337), purchased by — Librairie Lardanchet, Lyon (£29); Catalogue 41, [1937], item 68, FF 4800) — Binoche et Giquello & Dominique Courvoisier with Frédéric Castaing, Paris, 19 October 2016, lot 64. acquisition: Purchased at Binoche et Giquello through Robin Halwas. 
references: FB 76781; USTC 151380; Gültlingen, IX, p.174: 254; Cartier, Bibliographie des éditions des de Tournes, imprimeurs lyonnais, no. 250; for the binding see Toulet, “L’École lyonnaise de Reliure,” in Le siècle d’or de l’imprimerie lyonnaise (Paris, 1972), pp. 131–158 (p. 148).