Figure del Vecchio Testamento, con versi Toscani
- SIGNED
- Lyon: Giovanni di [Jean I de] Tournes, 1554
Lyon: Giovanni di [Jean I de] Tournes, 1554. 8vo (151 x 102 mm). Printer’s woodcut device on title (Cartier 5), woodcut author portrait on title verso, 228 half-page woodcuts by Bernard Salomon. (Upper margins cut close, touching an occasional headline, title soiled and with repair to lower blank corner, small wormhole through woodcuts of 30 leaves [fols. A1-D6], larger wormhole in 7 leaves [fols. L3-M1], P5 with a small hole in cut, B5 with small burnhole affecting two words.) Late 18th-century marbled sheep, smooth spine gold-tooled in panels, citron morocco gilt lettering-piece, speckled edges, marbled endpapers, ribbon marker (extremities rubbed, head of spine cracked). Provenance: 18th-century price note; Dr. Alamartine, surgeon of the Lyon hospitals (20th-century blindstamp on flyleaf).***
First Italian edition of the de Tournes / Salomon picture Bible (Old Testament only). The poet Damiano Maraffi provided the verse paraphrases which accompany each woodcut; he did the same for the New Testament, published by de Tournes in 1554, with fewer woodcuts (95). Maraffi dedicated this edition to Marguerite de France, Duchesse de Berry, youngest daughter of Francis I. The wood engraver Bernard Salomon, nearly all of whose oeuvre was published by de Tournes, was one of the few Renaissance illustrators to achieve fame during his lifetime. His Old Testament woodcuts first appeared in 1553 with Claude Paradin’s French verse text (Quadrins historiques de la Bible and Quadrins historiques d’Exode). De Tournes republished the cuts with texts in Spanish (1553), English (1553), and German (1554) as well as Italian. Successive editions contain varying numbers of cuts. “Considerable work could be done on Salomon’s sources for these blocks.... But the cumulative effect of Salomon’s carefully detailed scenes is that of an individual contribution to Bible illustration. Particularly interesting from the point of view of technique are the night scenes in Exodus and the storm over Noah’s ark” (Harvard/ Mortimer French 81).
A modest copy, but with fine impressions of the woodcuts, of one of the greatest sixteenth-century French illustrated books. Cartier, Bibliographie des éditions des de Tournes 268; Adams M-507; USTC 840556; cf. Brun, Le livre français illustré de la Renaissance (1969), pp. 77-70 & 131.
First Italian edition of the de Tournes / Salomon picture Bible (Old Testament only). The poet Damiano Maraffi provided the verse paraphrases which accompany each woodcut; he did the same for the New Testament, published by de Tournes in 1554, with fewer woodcuts (95). Maraffi dedicated this edition to Marguerite de France, Duchesse de Berry, youngest daughter of Francis I. The wood engraver Bernard Salomon, nearly all of whose oeuvre was published by de Tournes, was one of the few Renaissance illustrators to achieve fame during his lifetime. His Old Testament woodcuts first appeared in 1553 with Claude Paradin’s French verse text (Quadrins historiques de la Bible and Quadrins historiques d’Exode). De Tournes republished the cuts with texts in Spanish (1553), English (1553), and German (1554) as well as Italian. Successive editions contain varying numbers of cuts. “Considerable work could be done on Salomon’s sources for these blocks.... But the cumulative effect of Salomon’s carefully detailed scenes is that of an individual contribution to Bible illustration. Particularly interesting from the point of view of technique are the night scenes in Exodus and the storm over Noah’s ark” (Harvard/ Mortimer French 81).
A modest copy, but with fine impressions of the woodcuts, of one of the greatest sixteenth-century French illustrated books. Cartier, Bibliographie des éditions des de Tournes 268; Adams M-507; USTC 840556; cf. Brun, Le livre français illustré de la Renaissance (1969), pp. 77-70 & 131.