[Congrégations royales des Pénitents.] L’Office de la Vierge Marie, à l’usage de l’Eglise Catholique, Apostolique & Romaine, avec les Vigiles, Pseaumes graduels, Penitentiaux, & plusieurs prieres &Oraisons. Paris: Jamet Mettayer, 1586
This binding is decorated on the back with the crowned royal arms of France within the collar of the order of Saint-Esprit and motto “Spes mea Deus” of Henri III. Once thought to denote Henri III’s personal ownership, it is now supposed that it and similar bindings were made for presentation to members of the four penitential confraternities the King had founded in the years 1583–1585. Some bindings feature tools which link them to a particular confraternity, others—like the present one—are nonspecific. It may be that the latter were bound at the King’s order for general use in the royal chapel.
The statutes of the chivalric Ordre du Saint-Esprit founded by Henri III in 1578 had prescribed for its members (limited to one hundred) certain spiritual exercises, to be found in a book that the King was to give to them on their reception: Le Livre des statuts et ordonnances de l’ordre du benoist sainct Esprit (S. l. n. d.). It was not until 1583 that the intended book was published, “Par le commandement du Roy,” as a pocket-sized Latin Office of the Virgin (24mo format), featuring a set of French prayers contributed by the court poet Philippe Desportes (Lacombe, no. 476). On 20 March 1583, Henri III instituted the Congrégation royale des Pénitents de l’Association Notre-Dame, with an initial membership of three hundred confrères, including the King, courtiers, clergy of the royal court, and laity, one of whom was the royal printer, Jamet Mettayer. A year later, the King founded the Congrégation de l’Oratoire de Nostre-Dame de Vie-Saine (winter 1584), then the Confrérie de la mort et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (spring 1585), and the Oratoire et compagnie du benoist Sainct François (December 1585).
The need for books incorporating Tridentine forms of liturgical devotion was now acute. The 1583 Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis ad usum Romanum was reprinted by Jamet Mettayer in 1584, as L’Office de la Vierge Marie, in duodecimo format (Lacombe 480), and twice in 1586, in quarto format, now with engraved illustrations by Jean II Rabel and four new prayers by Philippe Desportes: Prière à Dieu (Souverain créateur du ciel et de la terre); Autre prière à Dieu (Seigneur Dieu qui par ta puissance); Prière aux saincts (Fleurs du Ciel …); Prière pour un parent, ou un amy défunct (Sauveur du monde) (see Rouget, “Une édition retrouvée de Philippe Desportes” in Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 75 [2013], pp. 341–353). Mettayer’s two quartos of 1586 are comprised of substantially the same sheets; one announces on its title-page: “Par le commandement du Roy” (Lacombe nos. 485–486). Editions in smaller format were published by Mettayer in 1586 and 1587 (Lacombe 487, 489). The Congrégations were dissolved upon Henri’s death (2 August 1589), if not before.
The printed statutes of the royal devotional confraternities did not project publication of books expressly for their confrères, except Les Statuts et reigle de l’Oratoire et compagnie du benoist sainct François (1586), which proposed to publish a Psalter (if it appeared, no copy has survived). Although Mettayer issued books of hours identified on their title-pages as “pour la congregation roiale des Penitens de l’Annonciation de Nostre Dame” (Lacombe 473) and “pour les confreres de l’Oratoire Nostre Dame de Vie-Saine” (Lacombe 479), his editions of L’Office de la Vierge Marie and companion Le Pseaultier de David were implicitly for use by all the royal congregations of penitents.
Accordingly, copies of Mettayer’s 1586 Le Pseaultier de David are found both in elaborately tooled bindings for members of the Confrérie de la mort (decorated by the Grim Reaper, skulls and crossbones, tears, etc.; Nixon, no. 55b), and in the “nonspecific” type of penitential binding, decorated by a Crucifixion medallion on the covers, with a skull, royal arms and motto on the spine. Copies of the 1586 Mettayer editions in quarto of L’Office de la Vierge Marie are seen in bindings for members of the Congrégation royale des Pénitents de l’Association Notre-Dame (these have an oval medallion of the Annunciation on upper cover, and a complex monogram of a form of their name; Nixon, no, 55a), for members of the Congrégation de l’Oratoire de Nostre-Dame de Vie-Saine (these are decorated by rows of interlaced Ps, and Vs and Ss; Nixon, no. 58), for members of the Confrérie de la mort (their usual “morbid trophies”; Joly, no. 76 & Pl. 18), and also in the “nonspecific” binding, as offered here. The Crucifixion medallion on our binding sometimes is associated with the Congrégation royale des Pénitents de l’Association Notre-Dame, but evidence is lacking (Coulet & Adeline, no. 6).
The earliest owners of this copy left no recognizable marks of ownership, and its whereabouts is unknown before about 1910. Since few copies of L’Office de la Vierge Marie in red morocco bindings can be traced, it is likely that ours is one of the copies (or copy?) passing through the French auction sale rooms, 1870–1887:
§ Delbergue-Cormont & Adolphe Labitte, Livres rares et précieux, manuscrits et imprimés, faisant partie de la librairie de L. Potier, libraire de la Bibliothèque Impériale, Paris, 29 March–9 April 1870, lot 80 (“réglé, mar. r. fil. tr. dor. Exemplaire du roi Henri III, avec ses armes, sa devise: Spes mea Deus, et la tête de mort”), purchased by — unidentified owner (FF 400) — Paradis (bibliophile of Lyon; Georges Boulland & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Livres rares et précieux provenant du cabinet d’un amateur lyonnais, Paris, 5–8 November 1879, lot 25 (“réglé, mar. rouge, fil., tr. dor. Exemplaire du roi Henri III, avec ses armes, la tête de mort et sa devise: Spes mea Deus. Ce livre contient quatorze belles planches gravées en taille-douce. [Vente Potier, 400 f.]”), purchased by — unidentified owner (FF 650).
§ Maurice Delestre & Charles Porquet, Bons livres anciens et modernes composant la bibliothèque de feu M. A. Salard, Paris 27 April–2 May 1885, lot 10 (“mar. rouge., fil., tr. dor. Exemplaire réglé aux armes du roi Henri III. Sur le plats le Crucifiement, sur les dos, la tête de mort, les armes de France, et la devise du Roi: Spes mea Deus”).
§ Maurice Delestre & Charles Porquet, Catalogue de beau livres la plupart reliés en maroquin ancien avec armoiries, estampes et portraits, provenant de la bibliothèque d’un amateur, Paris, 20–23 April 1887, lot 16 (“réglé, mar. rouge., fil., tr. dor. Reliure exécutée pour Henri III. Sur le dos les armes de France, la tête de mort, les fleurs de lis et la devise du Roi : Spes mea Deus. Sur les plats, un médaillon représentant le crucifiement de Jésus-Christ et les saintes femmes au pied de la Croix”).
4to (280 x 200 mm). Roman type, 15 lines plus headline. collation: ã4 é4 í4 õ4 ú4 ãã4 A–S4 +4 ++2 T–Z4 Aa–Mm4 +4 +2 Nn–Yy4 AA–XX4 a–i4 k2 YY–ZZ4 AAA4 BBB4 ã4 (bound between BBB2 & BBB3) CCC–DDD4 (DDD misbound at end) A–M4 N2: 416 leaves (DDD4 blank). Printed in red & black throughout, engraved vignette on title-page (Madonna and Child), 17 engraved illustrations (14 full-page, repeated), one engraving (Coronation of the Virgin, f. 63r), signed by Jean II Rabel, another (Mary Magdalen at the foot of the Cross, f. 158v) signed with the initials of Rabel’s collaborator, Zacharie Van Brauthegem (see Grivel, Œuvre gravé de Jean II Rabel, nos. 7-23). Ruled in red. (Lower fore-edge corner lost from Qq2, very occasional light marginal soiling.)
binding: Parisian red goatskin (290 x 209 mm), ca. 1586, for the royal chapel or a member of Henri III’s Order of Penitents, gold-tooled covers with triple fillet around sides, oval medallion of the Crucifixion in centers (69 mm), spine with 7 false bands of 4 fillets, skull in top compartment, crowned royal arms of France within the collar of the order of the Saint-Esprit in third, motto “SPES MEA | DEUS” at tail, and fleur-de-lis in other 3 compartments, gilt edges. (Neatly recased with endpapers replaced, extremities rubbed.)
provenance: Member of the royal Confrérie des penitents (unidentified) — Robert Hoe (1839–1909; Shipman, A Catalogue of Books Printed in Foreign Languages Before the Year 1600, Forming a Portion of the Library of Robert Hoe [New York, 1907], I, p.272; Anderson Galleries, New York, 15–19 April 1912, lot 342), purchased by — unidentified owner ($110) — Lucien Gougy, Paris (René Boisgirard, Henri Baudoin & Albert Besombes with Auguste Blaizot and Librairie Giraud-Badin, Paris, 5–8 March 1934, lot 199), purchased by — unidentified owner (FF820) — Marquis Emmanuel du Bourg de Bozas Chaix d’Est-Ange (1894–1990) [adopted nephew (1919) of Jean Théophile Jules Gustave Chaix d’Est-Ange (1863–1923); inheriting his library, and inserting Jean’s exlibris into his own purchases] — Bibliothèque du Château de Prye (Nièvre) (Laurin Guilloux Buffetaud Tailleur & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Paris, 27–28 June 1990, lot 81), purchased by — unidentified owner. acquisition: Purchased from Librairie Patrick et Elisabeth Sourget, Chartres, 1991
references: Lacombe, Livres d’heures imprimés au XVe et au XVIe siècle conservés dans les bibliothèques publiques de Paris (Paris, 1907), no. 486; for this and related bindings see: Nixon, Sixteenth-Century Gold-Tooled Bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York, 1971); his census of these penitential bindings enlarged by Conihout & Ract-Madoux, “Veuves, pénitents et tombeaux: reliures françaises du XVIe siècle à motifs funèbres, de Catherine de Médicis à Henri III,” in Funérailles à la Renaissance (Geneva, 2002), pp. 225–268 (p.242); Coulet & Adeline, Mettayer et les Confréries de pénitents: Trois exemplaires remarquables (Paris, [2016]), “Essai de typologie des fers de la Crucifixion”, no. 6; Joly, Exposition de reliures (Lyon, 1925), no. 76 & Pl. 18.
[Congrégations royales des Pénitents.] L’Office de la Vierge Marie, à l’usage de l’Eglise Catholique, Apostolique & Romaine, avec les Vigiles, Pseaumes graduels, Penitentiaux, & plusieurs prieres &Oraisons. Paris: Jamet Mettayer, 1586
This binding is decorated on the back with the crowned royal arms of France within the collar of the order of Saint-Esprit and motto “Spes mea Deus” of Henri III. Once thought to denote Henri III’s personal ownership, it is now supposed that it and similar bindings were made for presentation to members of the four penitential confraternities the King had founded in the years 1583–1585. Some bindings feature tools which link them to a particular confraternity, others—like the present one—are nonspecific. It may be that the latter were bound at the King’s order for general use in the royal chapel.
The statutes of the chivalric Ordre du Saint-Esprit founded by Henri III in 1578 had prescribed for its members (limited to one hundred) certain spiritual exercises, to be found in a book that the King was to give to them on their reception: Le Livre des statuts et ordonnances de l’ordre du benoist sainct Esprit (S. l. n. d.). It was not until 1583 that the intended book was published, “Par le commandement du Roy,” as a pocket-sized Latin Office of the Virgin (24mo format), featuring a set of French prayers contributed by the court poet Philippe Desportes (Lacombe, no. 476). On 20 March 1583, Henri III instituted the Congrégation royale des Pénitents de l’Association Notre-Dame, with an initial membership of three hundred confrères, including the King, courtiers, clergy of the royal court, and laity, one of whom was the royal printer, Jamet Mettayer. A year later, the King founded the Congrégation de l’Oratoire de Nostre-Dame de Vie-Saine (winter 1584), then the Confrérie de la mort et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (spring 1585), and the Oratoire et compagnie du benoist Sainct François (December 1585).
The need for books incorporating Tridentine forms of liturgical devotion was now acute. The 1583 Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis ad usum Romanum was reprinted by Jamet Mettayer in 1584, as L’Office de la Vierge Marie, in duodecimo format (Lacombe 480), and twice in 1586, in quarto format, now with engraved illustrations by Jean II Rabel and four new prayers by Philippe Desportes: Prière à Dieu (Souverain créateur du ciel et de la terre); Autre prière à Dieu (Seigneur Dieu qui par ta puissance); Prière aux saincts (Fleurs du Ciel …); Prière pour un parent, ou un amy défunct (Sauveur du monde) (see Rouget, “Une édition retrouvée de Philippe Desportes” in Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 75 [2013], pp. 341–353). Mettayer’s two quartos of 1586 are comprised of substantially the same sheets; one announces on its title-page: “Par le commandement du Roy” (Lacombe nos. 485–486). Editions in smaller format were published by Mettayer in 1586 and 1587 (Lacombe 487, 489). The Congrégations were dissolved upon Henri’s death (2 August 1589), if not before.
The printed statutes of the royal devotional confraternities did not project publication of books expressly for their confrères, except Les Statuts et reigle de l’Oratoire et compagnie du benoist sainct François (1586), which proposed to publish a Psalter (if it appeared, no copy has survived). Although Mettayer issued books of hours identified on their title-pages as “pour la congregation roiale des Penitens de l’Annonciation de Nostre Dame” (Lacombe 473) and “pour les confreres de l’Oratoire Nostre Dame de Vie-Saine” (Lacombe 479), his editions of L’Office de la Vierge Marie and companion Le Pseaultier de David were implicitly for use by all the royal congregations of penitents.
Accordingly, copies of Mettayer’s 1586 Le Pseaultier de David are found both in elaborately tooled bindings for members of the Confrérie de la mort (decorated by the Grim Reaper, skulls and crossbones, tears, etc.; Nixon, no. 55b), and in the “nonspecific” type of penitential binding, decorated by a Crucifixion medallion on the covers, with a skull, royal arms and motto on the spine. Copies of the 1586 Mettayer editions in quarto of L’Office de la Vierge Marie are seen in bindings for members of the Congrégation royale des Pénitents de l’Association Notre-Dame (these have an oval medallion of the Annunciation on upper cover, and a complex monogram of a form of their name; Nixon, no, 55a), for members of the Congrégation de l’Oratoire de Nostre-Dame de Vie-Saine (these are decorated by rows of interlaced Ps, and Vs and Ss; Nixon, no. 58), for members of the Confrérie de la mort (their usual “morbid trophies”; Joly, no. 76 & Pl. 18), and also in the “nonspecific” binding, as offered here. The Crucifixion medallion on our binding sometimes is associated with the Congrégation royale des Pénitents de l’Association Notre-Dame, but evidence is lacking (Coulet & Adeline, no. 6).
The earliest owners of this copy left no recognizable marks of ownership, and its whereabouts is unknown before about 1910. Since few copies of L’Office de la Vierge Marie in red morocco bindings can be traced, it is likely that ours is one of the copies (or copy?) passing through the French auction sale rooms, 1870–1887:
§ Delbergue-Cormont & Adolphe Labitte, Livres rares et précieux, manuscrits et imprimés, faisant partie de la librairie de L. Potier, libraire de la Bibliothèque Impériale, Paris, 29 March–9 April 1870, lot 80 (“réglé, mar. r. fil. tr. dor. Exemplaire du roi Henri III, avec ses armes, sa devise: Spes mea Deus, et la tête de mort”), purchased by — unidentified owner (FF 400) — Paradis (bibliophile of Lyon; Georges Boulland & Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Livres rares et précieux provenant du cabinet d’un amateur lyonnais, Paris, 5–8 November 1879, lot 25 (“réglé, mar. rouge, fil., tr. dor. Exemplaire du roi Henri III, avec ses armes, la tête de mort et sa devise: Spes mea Deus. Ce livre contient quatorze belles planches gravées en taille-douce. [Vente Potier, 400 f.]”), purchased by — unidentified owner (FF 650).
§ Maurice Delestre & Charles Porquet, Bons livres anciens et modernes composant la bibliothèque de feu M. A. Salard, Paris 27 April–2 May 1885, lot 10 (“mar. rouge., fil., tr. dor. Exemplaire réglé aux armes du roi Henri III. Sur le plats le Crucifiement, sur les dos, la tête de mort, les armes de France, et la devise du Roi: Spes mea Deus”).
§ Maurice Delestre & Charles Porquet, Catalogue de beau livres la plupart reliés en maroquin ancien avec armoiries, estampes et portraits, provenant de la bibliothèque d’un amateur, Paris, 20–23 April 1887, lot 16 (“réglé, mar. rouge., fil., tr. dor. Reliure exécutée pour Henri III. Sur le dos les armes de France, la tête de mort, les fleurs de lis et la devise du Roi : Spes mea Deus. Sur les plats, un médaillon représentant le crucifiement de Jésus-Christ et les saintes femmes au pied de la Croix”).
4to (280 x 200 mm). Roman type, 15 lines plus headline. collation: ã4 é4 í4 õ4 ú4 ãã4 A–S4 +4 ++2 T–Z4 Aa–Mm4 +4 +2 Nn–Yy4 AA–XX4 a–i4 k2 YY–ZZ4 AAA4 BBB4 ã4 (bound between BBB2 & BBB3) CCC–DDD4 (DDD misbound at end) A–M4 N2: 416 leaves (DDD4 blank). Printed in red & black throughout, engraved vignette on title-page (Madonna and Child), 17 engraved illustrations (14 full-page, repeated), one engraving (Coronation of the Virgin, f. 63r), signed by Jean II Rabel, another (Mary Magdalen at the foot of the Cross, f. 158v) signed with the initials of Rabel’s collaborator, Zacharie Van Brauthegem (see Grivel, Œuvre gravé de Jean II Rabel, nos. 7-23). Ruled in red. (Lower fore-edge corner lost from Qq2, very occasional light marginal soiling.)
binding: Parisian red goatskin (290 x 209 mm), ca. 1586, for the royal chapel or a member of Henri III’s Order of Penitents, gold-tooled covers with triple fillet around sides, oval medallion of the Crucifixion in centers (69 mm), spine with 7 false bands of 4 fillets, skull in top compartment, crowned royal arms of France within the collar of the order of the Saint-Esprit in third, motto “SPES MEA | DEUS” at tail, and fleur-de-lis in other 3 compartments, gilt edges. (Neatly recased with endpapers replaced, extremities rubbed.)
provenance: Member of the royal Confrérie des penitents (unidentified) — Robert Hoe (1839–1909; Shipman, A Catalogue of Books Printed in Foreign Languages Before the Year 1600, Forming a Portion of the Library of Robert Hoe [New York, 1907], I, p.272; Anderson Galleries, New York, 15–19 April 1912, lot 342), purchased by — unidentified owner ($110) — Lucien Gougy, Paris (René Boisgirard, Henri Baudoin & Albert Besombes with Auguste Blaizot and Librairie Giraud-Badin, Paris, 5–8 March 1934, lot 199), purchased by — unidentified owner (FF820) — Marquis Emmanuel du Bourg de Bozas Chaix d’Est-Ange (1894–1990) [adopted nephew (1919) of Jean Théophile Jules Gustave Chaix d’Est-Ange (1863–1923); inheriting his library, and inserting Jean’s exlibris into his own purchases] — Bibliothèque du Château de Prye (Nièvre) (Laurin Guilloux Buffetaud Tailleur & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Paris, 27–28 June 1990, lot 81), purchased by — unidentified owner. acquisition: Purchased from Librairie Patrick et Elisabeth Sourget, Chartres, 1991
references: Lacombe, Livres d’heures imprimés au XVe et au XVIe siècle conservés dans les bibliothèques publiques de Paris (Paris, 1907), no. 486; for this and related bindings see: Nixon, Sixteenth-Century Gold-Tooled Bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York, 1971); his census of these penitential bindings enlarged by Conihout & Ract-Madoux, “Veuves, pénitents et tombeaux: reliures françaises du XVIe siècle à motifs funèbres, de Catherine de Médicis à Henri III,” in Funérailles à la Renaissance (Geneva, 2002), pp. 225–268 (p.242); Coulet & Adeline, Mettayer et les Confréries de pénitents: Trois exemplaires remarquables (Paris, [2016]), “Essai de typologie des fers de la Crucifixion”, no. 6; Joly, Exposition de reliures (Lyon, 1925), no. 76 & Pl. 18.
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Create an alert![[Congrégation royale] L'office de la Vierge Marie, Paris, 1586, a Parisian...](https://sothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/339d22d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x2000+0+0/resize/385x385!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fmedia-desk%2Fwebnative%2Fimages%2F7c%2Feb%2F4d4fe350431198958be03a2d28ce%2Fn11245-cntch-t1-05.jpg "Source: Sotheby's")
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