Paris, chez la Veuve Matthieu Guillemot, au Palais en la gallerie des prisonniers, 1617.
3 parts bound in 1 volume 8vo [173 x 110 mm] of : I/ (4) ll. including the frontispiece, 409 pp., 5 full-page plates, (2) bl. ll. ; II/ 150 pp., 1 full-page plate, (1) bl. l. ; III/ 154 pp., (4) pp. for the privilege and the printer’s mark, 1 full-page plate, (2) bl. ll. Bound in contemporary limp vellum, remain of ties, flat spine with the handwritten title. A few insignificant light stains without gravity. Contemporary binding.
Exceedingly rare first edition of Claude Boitel’s translation of the Odyssey, the first version of the complete text in French prose, who only mention the 1619 reprint.
Claude Boitel (or Boitet de Frauville) (1570-1625), a lawyer at the Parliament of Paris, first published this translation of the Odyssey in 1617, embellishing it with numerous notes printed in the margins of the pages. He dedicated his text to “l’Illustrissime & Reverendissime Cardinal de La Roche-Foucault, Evêque de Senlis et Conseiller du Roy”.
From the beginning of the sixteenth century, Hellenists were at work in France to teach us to read and explain original Greek books. Generous spirits bravely led the studious phalanx; some Greeks even from the East had thrown into Paris the spark of their enthusiasm for classical antiquity.
Various scholars proposed translations of Homer as early as the reign of François I. Jehan Samxon thus produced a French translation of the Iliad in 1530. But it was not until 1570 that Pelletier du Mans proposed a first partial translation of the Odyssey (books 1 and 2). Amadis Jamyn in turn worked on the Odyssey, and his French version of the first three books was published in 1584. Salomon Certon was finally the first, in 1604, to give a complete translation of the 24 books of the Odyssey, in French verse.
Claude Boitel finally offers, in 1617, the first French translation in prose of the complete text of the Odyssey.
The illustration, superb, comprises a frontispiece engraved by Léon Gaultier, the coat of arms of the Cardinal de La Roche-Foucault on the verso of the title and 7 magnificent full-page engravings in the first issue by Matheus and Léon Gaultier, as well as very beautiful wood engraved head-pieces and initials.
A very beautiful pure copy, printed on large paper (thickness: 5 cm compared to 3.5 cm for ordinary copies), preserved in its original limp vellum binding
Localization of the copies among French public institutions: Rodez, Nancy, Beaune, B.n.F.
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