Alciati for the Sorbonne
ALCIATI, Andrea; Claude MIGNAULT, editor; Fédéric MOREL.
Omnia … emblemata, cum commentariis, quibus emblematum detecta origine dubia omnia, et obscura illustrantur … Accesserunt huic editioni … corollaria et monita. Paris, Jean Richer for François Gueffier, 1618.
8vo, pp. [xlviii], ‘968’ (recte 970), [30]; title-page copper-engraved by Jacques de Willes, 210 woodcut emblems (erratically numbered) within typographical or woodcut frames of animals, flowers, and grotesques, woodcut head- and tailpieces; light toning, water-stain across first ten leaves, nonetheless a good copy; bound in contemporary vellum, later manuscript lettering to spine; quire A a little loose, pastedowns slightly torn with remains of bookplate to front pastedown; seventeenth-century inscription ‘Hugo’ to front free endpaper (the rest torn away), seventeenth-century manuscript notes about Alciati to î8v and to rear free endpaper, nineteenth-century ink stamp of the Jesuits of Lyon (‘Domus Lugdunensis Soc. Jesu’) to front free endpaper.
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Omnia … emblemata, cum commentariis, quibus emblematum detecta origine dubia omnia, et obscura illustrantur … Accesserunt huic editioni … corollaria et monita.
The final Paris printing of Mignault’s extensive and influential commentary of Alciati’s Emblems, yet the first edition to contain Fédéric Morel’s ‘Corollaria et monita’.
Claude Mignault, a jurisconsult like Alciati himself, held lectures on emblems at the Sorbonne, the main centre for emblematic studies in Europe. His first edition, for which he altered the original ordering of the emblems, appeared in Paris in 1571 without any illustrations, followed by several editions by the Plantin Press. Mignault then assigned his privilege to the printers at the Sorbonne, who issued the Latin text in 1584 with a shorter version of Mignault’s commentary and with woodcut illustrations, later re-employed for this 1618 edition. The 1602 and 1608 Richer–Gueffier editions contained the full commentary, the former being Mignault’s ‘definitive’ edition, as the last to be produced in his lifetime; the engraved title here is reused from the previous editions, with only the cartouche containing the imprint printed from a separate plate. The notes by Fédéric Morel are new to this edition.
Mignault’s commentary proved influential, being incorporated into subsequent learned editions; his secular interpretation, including the application of emblems to armorials, contrasted with the development of religious emblems during the seventeenth century.
Alongside several misnumbered emblems, we find also one (CII) printed sideways and another (CLIX) upside-down. Emblem CXLIII is an Aldinesque dolphin and anchor, and the final fourteen feature various trees and plants, illustrated with botanical woodcuts.
USTC 6016162; Adams, Rawles, & Saunders F.070; Green, Alciati 148.