Gaspard de Saulx - Mémoires de Tavanes - 1600

SECRET MEMOIRS OF THE MARSHAL OF FRANCE: THE WARS SEEN FROM THE HOUSE OF SAULX-TAVANNES
ABSTRACT
Important seventeenth-century collection of memories of the de Saulx-Tavannes family, one of the great testimonies on the French civil and religious wars of the 16th century. The initial core is dedicated to Gaspard de Saulx, Marshal of France and protagonist of the military and political campaigns of his time, with the famous full-page engraved portrait. The exemplar also includes the Mémoires of Guillaume de Saulx and the Advis et conseils du mareschal de Tavanes, forming a vast historical-political corpus on France between the 16th and the early 17th century. Edition without printer’s imprint or date, belonging to the complex seventeenth-century editorial tradition of the Tavannes’ mémoires. Exemplar in antique binding, with significant defects to the back and signs of use consistent with its history.

WHY TO BUY
FIRST-HAND HISTORICAL TESTIMONY – A vast memorial corpus relating to the Italian Wars, the French Wars of Religion, royal politics and the military arts of the 16th century.
ENGRAVED PORTRAIT – Preserves the remarkable full-page portrait of Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes, Marshal of France, within an oval frame and allegorical apparatus.
MULTIPLE TEXTS UNITED – In addition to the memories dedicated to Gaspard, the volume includes the Mémoires of Guillaume de Saulx and the Advis et conseils du mareschal de Tavanes, offering exceptionally broad documentation on the dynasty.
RARE 17TH-CENTURY EDITION – The bibliographic tradition of the work is particularly complex, with issues lacking place, printer and date and later editions; a fascinating testimony to the seventeenth-century circulation of French historical and military memory.

MARKET VALUE
For a complete exemplar of the rare seventeenth-century edition, with portrait and all parts, the collectible value can be roughly €600–1,500. Completeness, specific issue and provenance can significantly affect valuation.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Antique full-leather binding; spine with raised bands and traces of gilded decorations and titling. The full-page engraved portrait of Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes is present. Numerous woodcut ornaments, historiated initials and tailpieces. Paper with some browning and physiological foxing, stains, halos, foxing and occasional old annotations and stamps. On the first title page are visible two important superficial abrasions/ losses. Binding worn: spine with significant leather loss, raised bands and stitches exposed, abrasions and losses to the tips and corners; boards worn and marked. This insertion contains AI Visualizations. Refer to the original photographs to verify the object’s actual condition. The images are an integral part of the description. In old books with a multigenerational history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 6nn; 476; 10nn; 88; 8nn; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Mémoires de tres-noble, et tres-illustre Gaspard de Saulx,
S.L., XVII secolo.
Gaspard de Saulx.

EDITORE / TIPOGRAFIA
Senza luogo, senza nome dello stampatore e senza data [s.l., s.n., s.d.], XVII secolo. The absence of typographical indications is characteristic of some issues of the complex editoral tradition of the Mémoires dei Tavannes. The volume should be attributed to the specific issue through typographic collation, pagination, ornaments and the composition of the different parts.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes was one of the greatest French military commanders of the 16th century. His career spanned the Italian Wars and the Wars of Religion, making him a privileged observer of the military, political and confessional transformations of the French monarchy. The Mémoires constitute a source of major importance for the history of the family and the events of France between the reign of Francis I and that of Charles IX. The volume’s interest is greatly enhanced by the presence of Guillaume’s memories and the Advis et conseils: together they nearly form a dynastic archive in print, in which military experience, family memory, theory of government and interpretation of the civil wars intertwine.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Gaspard de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes (1509–1573), was a soldier, commander and Marshal of France, a protagonist of the French campaigns of the mid-16th century. He fought in the Italian wars and later took a leading role in the French Wars of Religion. Jean de Saulx, his son, was the principal editor of the father’s memoir: the work is therefore not a modern autobiography, but a family memorial construction based on the life, campaigns and documentary tradition of Gaspard. Guillaume de Saulx (1554–1633), also a son of Gaspard, continued the family memorial tradition, leaving a particularly significant testimony on the French civil wars of the late 16th century.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The publisher history of the Mémoires des Saulx-Tavannes is particularly complex. The various components of the corpus circulated separately and were subsequently assembled in different editorial configurations. Some prints appeared without place, printer and date, making identification through materials such as collation, pagination, ornaments, type and the sequence of the parts necessary. The presence in the same exemplar of the memories dedicated to Gaspard, Guillaume’s memories and the Advis et conseils makes the volume especially interesting as a testament to the construction and transmission of Tavannes’ dynastic memory in the 17th century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Catalogue général.
Catalogue Collectif de France (CCFr).
WorldCat.
USTC – Universal Short Title Catalogue.
CERL Thesaurus.
Heritage of the Printed Book Database.
Léonce Pingaud, Les Saulx-Tavanes, Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1876.
Collection complète des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France, ed. C.-B. Petitot, Paris, Foucault, 1822, voll. XXIII–XXV.