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BOCCACCIO, Giovanni.
Le plaisant livre de noble homme Jehan bocace poete florentin des nobles et cleres dames…
Paris, [no pr.], for Poncet le Preux, 1538.
£4350.00
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8vo. ff. [viii] 196. Lettre Bâtarde. Title in red and black, large woodcut illustration of the author presenting the work to young followers, woodcut initials throughout in two or three series. Small, neat repair to blank outer corner of first gathering, some lower margins untrimmed. A very good and clean copy, attractive in natural 19thC crushed morocco gilt by Lortic, who restored the volume, covers with central gilt arabesque and corner fleurons, spine lettered in gilt, gilt dentelles, a.e.g. Collector's small inkstamp on fly. A very desirable copy of the rare second edition of the first French translation of Boccaccio's 'De claris mulieribus'. The work is a collection of 106 short biographies of famous women, starting with Eve and ending with Queen Joan of Naples (d. 1382), and including Venus, Medea and Medusa, Penelope, Hecuba, Jocasta and Cleopatra. Each biography has a moral and educational element. It was modelled on Petrarch's 'Lives of Famous Men,' and was the first Western work to focus exclusively on women. It was first published in 1493 (now quite unprocurable), and this edition was prepared by a syndicate of six Parisian booksellers. It was translated by Laurent du Premier-Fait, who was secretary to Jean, Duc de Berry, and who finished his translation in 1409. The text served as an inspiration to Geoffrey Chaucer and was partly responsible for reintroducing the model of the heroic woman into Western literature. BM STC Fr. p. 71; IA 120.271; Brunet I, p.990-1; Graesse I, p. 447; not in Fairfax Murray, Adams, Erdmann or Gay.
L644
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