Virgilio - Eneide - 1664

FIGURATIVE ENEIDE AT THE COURT OF THE SUN KING: EPIC AND POWER IN BAROQUE FRANCE
Elegant and monumental sixteenth- to seventeenth-century edition of Virgil’s Aeneid in the French heroic-verse translation by Pierre Perrin, printed in Paris in 1664 by Estienne Loyson. The work, enriched by an engraved frontispiece and fold-out copper plates, testifies to the full cultural and political appropriation of the Virgilian poem in Louis XIV’s France. In a context dominated by monarchic ideology and the centrality of the court, the figure of Aeneas — founder hero, bringer of civilization and dynastic legitimation — becomes a mirror of French absolutism. The iconographic apparatus, strongly baroque in imprint, translates Latin epic into theatrical, solemn, and scenographic images, conferring upon the volume a character of great typographic prestige and symbolic significance.

MARKET VALUE
Illustrated editions of the Aeneid from the 17th century, especially in French translation and accompanied by copper-engraved plates out of the text, are sought on the international market for the quality of the engravings, the literary value, and the political-cultural meaning of the work. Complete copies with the plates, in contemporary or antique binding, generally fetch between 500 and 1,500 euros, with higher figures for fresh copies, well preserved and complete with all plates. The absence of plates or structural defects significantly affect valuation.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Engraved frontispiece and 11 fold-out copper plates. Text in two parts with continuous pagination: pp. (2); 16 nn.; 456; 10 nn.; 240; (2). Typographic title-page with engraved vignette. Full leather binding with gilding to the spine; corners and hinges worn. Marginal foxing and staining on the last leaves. Paper with sporadic browning.
In old books with a centuries-long history, a few imperfections may be present that are not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
L’Eneide de Virgile.
Traduite en vers héroïques françois par Pierre Perrin.
Paris, Chez Estienne Loyson, 1664.
Publio Virgilio Marone.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Composed between 29 and 19 BCE, the Aeneid is the great Latin epic poem in twelve books recounting Aeneas’s voyage from the fall of Troy to the mythical founding of the Roman gens. The work celebrates Rome’s historic mission and legitimizes the Augustan power through a providential view of history, fusing myth, religion, and politics.

In seventeenth-century France, the poem is reread through a monarchic and national lens. Under Louis XIV, classical culture becomes a tool of self-representation of the State: the figure of Aeneas, founder and lawgiver, lends itself to being identified with the ideal of the absolute sovereign. The dedication to Cardinal Mazarin and the translation into French heroic verse place the work within a precise cultural operation: appropriating the Latin epic as the symbolic foundation of French grandeur.

The tailledouce illustration apparatus amplifies this ideological program. The large fold-out plates — depicting the storm, the fall of Troy, Dido, and the battles in Latium — transform Virgil’s narration into a sequence of theatrical, dynamic, and monumental scenes typical of French baroque engraving. The image is not limited to illustrating but interprets and spectacularizes the text, making it an object of visual contemplation as well as literary.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHORS
Publio Virgilio Marone (70–19 BCE), born near Mantua, was the greatest epic poet of the Augustan age. Author of the Eclogues and Georgics, he cemented his fame with the Aeneid, left unfinished at his death. In the Middle Ages he was revered as auctor par excellence and in the Renaissance he became the absolute model of stylistic perfection, a cornerstone of European humanistic education.

Pierre Perrin (ca. 1620–1675), French poet and man of letters, was a central figure in the birth of French lyric theatre and collaborated in founding the Académie d’Opéra, predecessor of the Opéra de Paris. His translation of the Aeneid into heroic French verse fits into the cultural project of ennobling the French language through direct contact with great classical models, making Virgil accessible to the educated public of the Grand Siècle.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The 1664 edition represents the second edition, revised and corrected by the author. Printed in Paris by Estienne Loyson, it fits within the context of the grand illustrated editorial enterprises of the second half of the seventeenth century, characterized by abundant use of out-of-text engravings and a strong integration of text and image. Copies circulated among aristocratic circles, court libraries, and collectors sensitive to both literary quality and iconographic prestige. The work participates in the broader phenomenon of monumental translations of classical Latin authors, functional to the construction of French cultural identity under Louis XIV.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Brunet, Jacques-Charles, Manuel du libraire et de l’amateur de livres, Paris, t. V, s.v. “Virgile”, for the illustrated French editions of the 17th century.
Tchemerzine, Anatole, Bibliographie d’éditions originales et rares d’auteurs français, s.v. Perrin, with reference to the 1664 editions.
Cioranescu, Alexandre, Bibliographie de la littérature française du XVIIe siècle, for Perrin’s editorial fortune.
Fumaroli, Marc, L’Âge de l’éloquence, for the cultural and rhetorical context of French classicism.
Studies on Virgil’s reception in the France of the Grand Siècle and on epic verse translation in the 17th century.