Black Madonna
VILLETTE, Étienne Nicolas.
Histoire de l’image miraculeuse de Notre-Dame de Liesse, par M. Villette, prêtre, docteur de Sorbonne, chanoine et grand-archidiacre, etc. Laon, A. P. Courtois, 1821.
16mo, pp. [2], 46; woodcut of ‘N. Dame de Liesse’ to title; some creasing to corners; a very good copy, stab-stitched in contemporary blue wrappers; wear to spine and corners; nineteenth-century manuscript shelfmark in red ink inside front wrapper with very slight offsetting to title.
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Histoire de l’image miraculeuse de Notre-Dame de Liesse, par M. Villette, prêtre, docteur de Sorbonne, chanoine et grand-archidiacre, etc.
A seemingly unrecorded edition (first 1743) of this history of the miraculous statue of the Black Virgin preserved in the basilica of Notre-Dame de Liesse, in northern France, printed in nearby Laon.
Villette’s Histoire tells of how the statue was brought by angels to three knightly brothers imprisoned by the Sultan of Egypt and pressured to convert to Islam. Won over by their unwavering faith, the Sultan’s daughter Ismérie helps them escape, and during their flight the foursome are miraculously transported to Northern France, where Ismérie is baptised and the knights build a handsome church for the statue. This colourful tale is here appended with an account of royal visits to Liesse down the years, including one in 1821 by the Duchesse de Berry, and with various prayers.
No copies traced on OCLC or CCfr.