George Dunn’s Copy
LA VIGNE, André de.
Le vergier dhonneur nouvellement imprime a paris. De lentreprinse et voyage de Naples. Auquel est comprins comment le roy Charles huytiesme de ce nom a baniere desployee passa et rapassa de iournee en iournee depuis Lyon iusques a Naples, & de naples iusques a lyon. Ensemble plusieurs aultres choses faictes et composees Par reverend pere en dieu monsieur Octovien de sainct Gelais evesque dangolesme Et par maistre Andry de la vigne secretaire de la Royne & de monsieur le duc de Savoye avec aultres. [(Colophon:) Paris, Philippe le Noir], [1521–22].
Folio, ff. [128]; title printed in red and black, text printed in double column in lettres bâtardes, 6 woodcut illustrations (one full-page depicting the author in his study surrounded by books (though with plants on the ground), and an angel holding an empty banderole; a scene of battle; the funeral of a king, used twice; a scene with three scribes and the letterpress heading DE La VIGNE; and a knight and a lady in a wood), woodcut initials, woodcut device of Michel Le Noir [Renouard 620] to final verso; very neat repairs to title verso and to outer margins of first quire, minor wormhole in text of quires T–X (with some repairs affecting text), a few small repairs to final leaf, but a very good copy; nineteenth-century brown morocco by Francis Bedford (front turn-in signed in gilt), boards panelled in gilt, spine gilt in compartments and lettered directly in gilt, edges gilt; booklabel of George Dunn to front pastedown (see below), later bookseller’s ticket of William Salloch (Ossining, NY) to rear pastedown.
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Le vergier dhonneur nouvellement imprime a paris. De lentreprinse et voyage de Naples. Auquel est comprins comment le roy Charles huytiesme de ce nom a baniere desployee passa et rapassa de iournee en iournee depuis Lyon iusques a Naples, & de naples iusques a lyon. Ensemble plusieurs aultres choses faictes et composees Par reverend pere en dieu monsieur Octovien de sainct Gelais evesque dangolesme Et par maistre Andry de la vigne secretaire de la Royne & de monsieur le duc de Savoye avec aultres.
George Dunn’s copy of a rare early edition of the Vergier d’honneur, a reprint of the 1512 edition by Jean Petit and Jean Frellon.
The distribution of copies was divided between Le Noir, the widow of Jean Jehannot, and Petit; all copies contain Le Noir’s colophon, but are differentiated by the printer’s devices and the address of purchase on the title-page. Following the printing of the first edition in 1503, which seems to have taken place on the initiative of André de La Vigne (1457–1527), secretary to the Queen of France, La Vigne sought to control other (and therefore ‘unauthorised’) Paris printings: in 1504 he filed a successful lawsuit to prevent Michel le Noir, Philippe’s father, from publishing the text, which is generally considered to be the first lawsuit in France by an author seeking to control the use of his writings. Michel le Noir died in 1520; this book would therefore have been one of Philippe’s earliest printings, still using his father’s device.
Unsurprisingly, William Morris also owned a copy of a Philippe le Noir edition of this text; his copy had a woodcut border with the cross of Lorraine on the title-page, which is now ascribed to c. 1525 (Bechtel V-60). Both le Noir editions contain repères, ‘Le ver. dhō’ or ‘Ver. dō’, printed at the foot of the left-hand column on most of the signed leaves; this feature is more usually seen in Parisian Books of Hours from this date, to identify the diocesan use.
Provenance:
1. J. Pearson & Co., catalogue no. 71 (1891), item 532, priced at £8 15s.
2. George Dunn (1864–1912), with his letterpress booklabel printed by the Kelmscott Press, his pencil notes about the printer’s device to the flyleaf, dated January 1901, and his price code ‘-νλν-‘ (or ‘-γλν-’). His extensive library was sold by Sotheby, Wilkinson, & Hodge in several sales between 1913 and 1917; his sale, 6 February 1914, lot 1569 (£21 to Quaritch).
We find only one copy in the UK (BL) and two copies – albeit both of a different issue – in the US (Huntington, Virginia).
BP16 104516; USTC 20778; Bechtel, Gothiques françaises V-59; cf. Fairfax Murray, French 496 (first edition).