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398 - EUSTATHE MACREMBOLITE - Les Adventures amoureuses d'Ismène e…
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Estimate €500
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EUSTATHE MACREMBOLITE - Les Adventures amoureuses d'Ismène et d'Isménie, histoire grecque d'Eustathius, mise en françois par le Sr Colletet. Paris, Toussainct du Bray, 1625. In-8, (8) ff. (front title engraved by Léonard Gaultier and one blank leaf included), 459 (3) pp. 18th c. red morocco, floral dent. on boards, spine ribbed and decorated throughout without title, gilt tr. LEVER 27. First edition of Guillaume Colletet's translation. The first edition of this twelfth-century Byzantine novel was published in 1617 by the scholar Gilbert Gaulmin, well versed in Greek and Oriental languages, with a Latin translation. In his preface, the young Guillaume Colletet confessed his indebtedness to this translation, which he combined with the beauties of Lelio Carani's 1550 Italian translation: ''Where their explanations differ (he said) I have followed the one that seemed to me the most delicate and plausible''. The young poet was thus offering the public a version more in keeping with his tastes than the outdated translations by Jean Louveau (1559) and Jérôme d'Avost (1582) based solely on Carani, and especially at the time of the triumph of the Astrée, of which the novel Ismene. et Ismenias is one of the sources. The very fine frontispiece by Léonard Gaultier depicts a château preceded by an ordered garden of quadrilateral parterres that might be said to have been laid out by Androuet Du Cerceau. The portico framing the composition was also sometimes used to close Renaissance gardens. The elaborate fountain in the centre of the garden is reminiscent of the marvellous fountain used to discover the secret of feelings, which plays a key role in L'Astrée. It should be noted that the beginning of Eustathe's novel gives pride of place to the garden, where the hero can admire a gallery of allegorical paintings. The dedicatee, the Duke of Nemours, who from 1616 onwards was a great organiser of festivities and ballets, must not have been insensitive to Colletet's tribute.
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About the sale JEAN DEMAUX LIBRARY - DAY 2
Auction location
Auction time 06/19/2026 at 2:00 PM
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