Charles Patin - Introduction à l’histoire des médailles - 1665

PATIN, CHARLES. — INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY, BY THE KNOWLEDGE OF MEDALS (PARIS, JEAN DU BRAY & PIERRE VARIQUET, 1665, ORIGINAL EDITION).
Paris: Jean du Bray & Pierre Variquet, 1665.
In-12. Full contemporary calf adorned with gilded borders.
The original Paris edition highly sought after, issued in the middle of the Sun King’s reign by the booksellers of Rue Saint-Jacques.

First great numismatic manual written in French, this work revolutionized the study of Antiquity in the 17th century. Charles Patin shows how metallic coins, insensitive to the wear of time and to alterations by copyists, constitute irrefutable evidence for verifying the chronology of reigns, the iconography of sovereigns, and mythology.
The illustration shines in its variety: the engraved plate by François Chauveau in the frontispiece pays homage to Louis XIV, while the numismatic vignettes engraved in the text reveal the profiles of ancient empresses (such as the queen of Palmyra Zenobia) and curiosities like the medal of the Faculty of Medicine issued by Guy Patin in 1652 with the motto "Felix qui potuit".

Beautiful copy preserved in its 17th-century full brown morocco binding with a gilded frame. Boards adorned with an elegant frame of fillets and gilt corner florets. The leather shows epidermal cracks, rubbing and surface crazing from use, wear to the hinges and corners, but the structure remains very firm. Interior very sound on handsome period laid paper with small, light marginal damp-stains along the border of the title page. Complete with Chauveau’s frontispiece and the numerous coin engravings printed in the text.

Son of the volatile Guy Patin (dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris and famous epistolary), Charles Patin was a compulsive numismatist. His medal collection was so fabulous that it aroused the jealousy of Europe’s greatest cabinets... before a dark affair of clandestine books forced him to flee France in disguise.