Clément Marot / Barthélemy Aneau / Pierre Eskrich - OVID Metamorphoses - 1556

1556 RARE ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF METAMORPHOSES by Ovid (43 BC – AD 17), and translated into French verse by two historic poets of French Renaissance literature, Clément Marot (1496-1544) and Barthélemy Aneau (1505-1561). The 57 beautiful illustrations created by Pierre Vase, also known as Pierre Eskrich (1518-1590), a skilled engraver active in Lyon for various publishers, are each engraved in a different and highly elaborate frame with characters, monsters, animals, and grotesque symbols, a masterpiece of French Renaissance literature. Richly decorated title, some illustrations are signed "PV" (Pierre Vase), pages 21, 103 and 206. This is one of the first French translations of Ovid. A beautiful, complete copy in good condition, with an antique, sturdy leather binding and in perfect condition. No copies for sale; the last sale was in 2007 at Christie's for €3,360 https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4907633. References; World Cat OCLC n°1447102846 & 1254540504; USTC n°34708; Baudrier IX, 236-237; Brun Le Livre français illustré de la Renaissance, 263-264; Fairfax-Murray French II, 401; Brunet, vol. 4 pp. 284; Andrew Pettegree, Malcolm Walsby and Alexander Wilkinson: French Vernacular Books before 1601 (Leiden: Brill, 2007) Reference: 40221; Early European Books (Proquest) Reference: fra-bnf-rlr-00008453-001.

TITLE: Trois premiers livres de la Métamorphose d'Ovide, Traduictz en vers François. Le premier et second, par Cl. Marot. Le tiers par B. Aneau...mythologizez par allégories...recueillies des bons autheurs grecs et latins...avec une préparation de voie à la lecture et intelligence des poètes fabuleux…(The first three books of Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated into French verse. The first and second, by Clément Marot. The third by Barthélemy Aneau... mythologized through allegories...collected from the best Greek and Latin authors...with a preparation for reading and understanding the fabulous poets…)
AUTHORS: Ovid (43 BC – AD 17), translated and commented by Clément Marot (1496-1544) and Barthélemy Aneau (1505-1561)
PUBLISHER: Edition shared with Guillaume Rouillé and printed by Macé Bonhomme
DATE: 1556, in Lyon, text in French

DESCRIPTION: In 8vo size, height 183 x width 119 mm (7.2 by 4.7 inches). Pages [44], 266. Title-frontispiece framed with decorations and grotesque figures, illustrations and text in rich frames, some signed "PV" (Pierre Vase) in the pages 21, 103 and 206. The book contains 57 full-page illustrations, text and illustrations are clean, intact and well engraved, rare small stains or defects. A beautiful, complete copy in good condition (minimal insignificant defects), with an antique, sturdy half leather binding from 1850 circa, solid and in perfect condition, with decorations and titles of the work and author on the spine. All in very good overall condition. COMPLETE EDITION.

ILLUSTRATOR: One of the best editions of Ovid's Metamorphoses with illustrations by the great French artist Pierre Vase, also known as Pierre Eskrich. These illustrators transformed the aesthetics of the Renaissance book and inaugurated the Baroque era of layout, organizing innovative typographical and decorative materials, promoting illustration with wood engravings, combining visual appeal, readability and effectiveness. Born in Paris to a German jewelry engraver, he also worked in Geneva and then opened a studio in Lyon where he collaborated with the best publishers in the area providing engravings for use as frontispieces, ornaments and typography used in the works of Guillaume Rondelet, Balthazar Arnoullet, Jean Pillehotte, Berthelemy Honorat, Macé Bonhomme, and for the bookseller Guillaume Rouillé. Many of these woodblocks had the initials "PV" (Pierre Vase).

AUTHORS-TRANSLATORS:Clément Marot was a French Renaissance poet. He was influenced by the writers of the late 15th century and paved the way for the Pléiade, and is undoubtedly the most important poet at the court of Francis I. It was the time of the rhétoriqueurs, poets who combined stilted language with a fondness for the allegorical manner of the 15th century and the most complicated and artificial forms of the ballade and the rondeau. Clément began as a "rhétoriqueur", though he later helped overthrow this style (Tilley, Arthur (1904). "Chapter IV. Marot". The Literature of the French Renaissance. Vol. I. Cambridge University Press. pp. 53–83). Barthélemy Aneau was a French poet and humanist. He is known for his novel Alector, ou le coq, and his work on emblems. He was born in Bourges but later moved to Lyon where he became regent, then principal of the Collège de la Trinité. In Lyon, he was part of the cultural life of the city and of a cenacle of scholars (Maurice Scève, Pierre Tolet) who were working to promote new reflections on poetic (Brigitte Biot, Barthélemy Aneau, régent de la Renaissance lyonnaise, Paris, Honoré Champion, 1996).

MAIN AUTHOR: Publius Ovidius Naso also known as Ovid (43 BC – AD 17/18), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a carmen et error ("poem and a mistake"), but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars. Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses, a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in dactylic hexameters. He is also known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti. His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology today.

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