Menestrier - Méthode raisonnée du blason - 1718

[HERALDIC – SCIENCES & ARTS OF HERALDRY – 18th CENTURY]
MENESTRIER, Father Claude-François
The New Reasoned Method of Blazon, for learning it in an easy manner; Reduced into Lessons, by questions, & by answers.
In Lyon, At Louis Bruyset, rue Mercière, near rue Tupin, 1718
New Edition, revised, corrected & augmented. With royal privilege.

In-12 (1 volume). Frontispiece engraved in copperplate, title page with vignette, preface and body of the textual work completed by superb plates hors texte engraved in copperplate representing numerous heraldic coats of arms and heraldic shields annotated (e.g., Damas, Dalbon, de St. George, Chalmazel, de Châteauneuf, etc.).
* Binding: Full brown calf of the period, spine with raised bands ornamented with compartments and gilt fillets (wear from use, headcaps and corners rubbed but overall solid, authentic and homogeneous). Marbled edges.

Lyons edition of 1718 (the first edition appeared at the end of the 17th century), published by Louis Bruyset. Father Claude-François Menestrier (1631-1705), a Lyonnais Jesuit, scholar and undisputed expert of heraldry, revolutionized the study of blazon by rendering it didactic through the question-and-answer method, moving away from esoteric grimoires to make it a rigorous science accessible to the nobility as well as to those of the robe.

In its period style, presenting a beautiful antique patina, with signs of wear on the boards and spine, but with solid hinges and properly in place headbands.
Paper well preserved, fresh with rare scattered foxing. Superb frontispiece allegorical engraved and plates of heraldic shields finely executed, entirely clean and well contrasted.

Father Menestrier is the “great codifier” of French heraldry. By transforming the learning of blazon into an interactive question-and-answer game, he enabled the elite of the Grand Siècle and the Enlightenment to decipher the secret language of armorial bearings carved on tombstones, carriages and the façades of castles.

Fine copy.