ARMS BY HAND
VARILLAS, [Antoine].
La Pratique de l’education des princes, contenant l’histoire de Guillaume de Croy, surnommé Le Sage, seigneur de Chiévres, Gouverneur de Charles d’Autriche qui fut empereur cinquiéme du nom.
Amsterdam, H. Wetstein & H. Desbordes, 1686.
12mo, pp. [2 (blank)], [34], 407, [1 (blank)]; woodcut device to title, woodcut headpieces and factotum initials; light spotting throughout, worming to lower margin of quires G-I, but a good copy; in contemporary vellum over boards, upper board decorated in blind with repeated use of a point tool forming arms and a monogram (‘LM’?) within elaborate borders, spine lettered in ink, edges speckled red; upper turn-ins lifting; near-contemporary ownership inscription ‘Lemaistre’ with acquisition note to upper pastedown.
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La Pratique de l’education des princes, contenant l’histoire de Guillaume de Croy, surnommé Le Sage, seigneur de Chiévres, Gouverneur de Charles d’Autriche qui fut empereur cinquiéme du nom.
A highly unusually decorated binding, likely an amateur imitation of then-fashionable tooling.
The simple vellum binding has been very curiously tooled, most likely by an early owner rather than a professional binder. Although imitating typical finishing with armorial blocks and tooled (or possibly plaquetted) borders, the board’s design has been executed with a single heated point, applied with varying pressure and in places flicked or dragged across the surface of the vellum. It is tempting to link the monogrammed ‘LM’ on the board with the inscription of ‘Lemaistre’, but the owner – and the corresponding arms – have not been firmly identified.
The text, a popular biography of William de Croÿ (1458–1521) first printed in Paris in 1684, examines his influence as tutor to Charles V as a model of the education of princes. Its author, Antoine Varillas (c. 1624–1696), served briefly as historian to Gaston d’Orléans and made an unsuccessful foray into bibliography under Colbert; he found greater success with published writings, most notably his history of France.
