Item #4216 Les Oeuvres. Claude de PONTOUX.
Les Oeuvres.
Les Oeuvres.
Les Oeuvres.
Les Oeuvres.
“D’une extrême rareté” (Picot)

Les Oeuvres. Lyon: Benoit Rigaud, 1579.

16mo (107 x 72 mm). 347 pages. Italic types (printer’s letter to the readers in roman type). Printer’s woodcut device on title (Baudrier no. 3), woodcut initials, type ornament head-pieces. Trimmed close, shaving a letter of title and the occasional signature; printed on inferior paper, some discoloration. Fine modern retrospective binding of dark brown morocco, sides with a strapwork design of inlaid light brown morocco with central gilt monogram of Barbier-Mueller, spine panelled with same light brown morocco, morocco doublures within single gilt fillet, moiré silk liners, by Honegger, stamp-signed on front doublure; edges red-stained; matching morocco-backed chemise and slipcase. Provenance: contemporary inscription on blank verso of last leaf: “Ce present lyure et a moy Et a ses amys. Qui le moy trouvera le moy randra en pouyant[?] le vin le jour de la St. Martin, le deuxieme daoust 1579,” final name scratched out, a monogram (?VAE) in the same ink on final flyleaf; Mariotte, 18th-century signature on title; with Pierre Berès, Cat. 85 (1995), no. 281 (then in a roan binding), sold to; Jean-Paul Barbier-Mueller (1930-2016), supra-libros, ink-stamped monogram on lower free endleaf, a manuscript note from him on a mounted slip on lower flyleaf, dated 20 July [19]95.***

First Edition of the collected works of a Burgundian poet, published shortly after his death, including a collection of nearly 300 love sonnets, appearing here for the first time.

Pontoux was a doctor from Chalon-sur-Saône, who spent part of his youth in Italy, and whose professional life was eclipsed by his fluent versifying, which produced some excellent poetry. In his preface to the reader, the printer laments the loss of the poet, who had just finished his new sonnet collection when the pitiless Parca (Atropos) struck him down. Composed by Pontoux in honor of his mistress, dubbed Idée, the 298 sonnets, stylistically influenced by Ronsard, include a few in Italian. Autobiographical sections include (oddly, given the dedicatee) stanzas on the kisses of Roman women and a tour of the courtesans of Venice (stanzas 142 and 258). The rest of the volume includes both light verses — songs, epigrams, a humorous erotic poem titled Mignardise — and more pointed occasional verse, on the troubles of the time, the death of a princess, and a celebrated poem on the entry of Charles IX into Paris in 1571. Mixed with his own poetry are this Italophile’s translations and silent imitations of Ariosto, Petrarch, and Bembo; and a few translations from Latin and Greek. Epitomizing Pontoux’s breadth of tone, one of the last poems, a translation of a poem by Filippo Beroaldo on Christ and the Passion, incongruously follows a burlesque elegy on the death of a pig named Grongnet.

Among the prefatory material, by various authors including his friend Pontus de Tyard, is a Tombeau pyramidal to the author by Jean de Chevigny Beaunois, printed in the form of a pyramid.

In a note affixed at the end, Jean-Paul Barbier-Mueller explained his decision to have the book rebound: the binding had been described in the Berès catalogue as contemporary sheep, but it in fact dated from the 18th century and was falling apart, forcing him to make the “difficult decision” to bring in his binder (Jean-Luc Honegger).

USTC lists 5 copies: BnF (2 copies), Albi, Besançon, and the British Library. Not in NUC.

Barbier-Mueller, Ma bibliothèque poétique, IV-5, 43; Baudrier III: p. 351; not in Gültlingen; Picot, Les français italianisants au XVIe siècle (1906) II: 49-57 (”le volume est d’une extrême rareté”); Grente, Dictionnaire des Lettres Françaises, XVIe siècle (1951), 577.
Item #4216

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