Jesuit Dictionary Published by Two Widows
[POMEY, François.]
Syllabus seu lexicum Graeco-Latino-Gallicum: in quo, facili juxta, brevique methodo vocabula quaecumque Latina in usum venire solent inter loquendum aut scribendum, resectis superfluis et inutilibus, Graece, Galliceque redduntur ... Opera unius de Societate Jesu elaboratum ... Lyon, ‘apud viduam Molin, viduam Tomas, et Ludov. Declaustre’, (colophon:) ‘ex typographia Michaelis Goy’, 1703.
8vo, pp. 462, [2]; title in red and black, text in two columns, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces; small marginal tears to I3 and R1, some browning and light foxing, small dampstain to some upper margins, small ink stain to last leaf; otherwise a good copy in contemporary calf; worn and marked, some splitting to joints; contemporary ownership inscriptions partly crossed through to rear endpapers.
Added to your basket:
Syllabus seu lexicum Graeco-Latino-Gallicum: in quo, facili juxta, brevique methodo vocabula quaecumque Latina in usum venire solent inter loquendum aut scribendum, resectis superfluis et inutilibus, Graece, Galliceque redduntur ... Opera unius de Societate Jesu elaboratum ...
Rare later edition (first 1664) of this Latin to French and Greek dictionary by the Jesuit François Pomey (1618–1683), with two women featuring in the imprint, Barbe Molin and Jeanne Thomas.
Pomey taught humanities and rhetoric and, from 1644, served as Préfet des basses classes at the Collège de la Trinité in Lyon. Best known for his Dictionnaire royal des langues françoise et latine (1664) and Pantheum mythicum (1659), Pomey was one of several important lexicographers to occupy the Préfet’s post. Dictionaries were indispensable pedagogical tools for the Jesuits, who believed, like Erasmus, that knowledge of words was an essential precursor to knowledge of things. The text here runs from ‘Ab’ to ‘Zythum’ (‘De la biere, ou autre semblable breuvage’).
Barbe Molin (1665–1709) was the daughter of the bookseller Pierre Compagnon, and in 1684 married Horace Molin, a fellow member of the Lyon book trade. When Horace was interned in 1698 following a bout of madness, Barbe was left in debt but she promptly formed a business partnership with Jeanne Thomas (née Valentin, d. 1725), widow of the bookseller Antoine, and Jeanne’s nephew Louis Declaustre. Their association lasted until December 1704, ended by a disagreement between Barbe and Louis. Barbe published several works on Latin grammar and versification, as well as other texts by Pomey, including an edition of his Dictionnaire royal. She also worked, as here, in collaboration with the printer Michel Goy.
No copies of this edition traced in the UK or US.
Sommervogel VI, col. 986.