A Paris, Pour Felix Le Mangnier, rue neufve nostre-Dame…, 1585. Avec Privilège du Roy.
2 parts in one volume 4to [225 x 170 mm]. Full overlapping limp vellum, remains of ties, flat spine. Contemporary binding.
First edition to gather Hunting and Hawking by Jacques du Fouilloux. Thiébaud 300-303; Schwerdt I, p. 153; Souhart 151-152; Jeanson 191.
This volume is composed of two parts both with their own title and a separate pagination. Hunting: (8) ll. (including the title, with the tribute figure on the verso), 125 ll. and the various treatises added to this edition; (1) bl. l.; (4) ll. for the « Recueil des mots de vénerie » (38 lines a page); 57 woodcuts in the text. Fauconnerie [Hawking] de Iean de Franchieres, grand prieur d’Aquitaine, avec tous les autres autheurs qui se sont peu trouver traictans de ce subject. De nouveau reveuë, corrigee et augmentee, outre les precedentes impressions. A Paris, Pour Félix Le Mangnier, 1585. Avec privilège du Roy: (4) ll., 127, (5) ll. ; 31 bird figures in the text (several of them repeated). For a copy to be complete, one needs to find both works together.
“This edition contains in addition to the previous one, under the heading “Additions”, ‘The Wolf hunting’, by Jean de Clamorgan ; ‘The Rabbit hunting’, extracted from ‘The Rural house’ by Charles Estienne and Jean Liébault and ‘The very useful and necessary remedies for dogs diseases’, which are extracted and translated from ‘Tre libri degli uccelli da rapina’, by Carconna. In future, all editions will contain these enlargements.” (Thiebaud).
“Very sought-after edition, due to the advantage of the enlargements inserted, and because the proofs are better than the later editions.” Thiébaud.
Jacques du Fouilloux born in the 16th century, in this part of the Bas-Poitou known under the name of Gastine, near Parthenay, divided his leisure between poetry and hunting, the kind of exercise he was mad about. He built up a collection of observations on animal habits, and on the most pleasant way to hunt them: he will publish it under this title: Hunting…
Jacques du Fouilloux published his hunting treatise in 1561, but it is in this reprint in 1585 that he added to his work the one of Franchières which had not been published yet.
Jean de Franchières, knight of Rhodes or St John of Jerusalem, lived at Louis XI’s court and enjoyed the reputation of an educated man since Naudé quotes him to prove that before Francis I’s reign nobleness already cultivated sciences. Franchières is the author of Hawking. He composed this treatise after Syrian and Italian sources on Jacques Du Fou’s request, great hunter of France.
Superb and exceptional copy preserved in its beautiful contemporary overlapping limp vellum binding, the most enviable condition nowhere to be found for this great 16th century classic.
From Joseph de Lassberg’s collection with hanwritten ex libris “Villa Epponis ad Bibliothecam” on the endleaf.
