Beschreibung:

DENISOT, NICOLAS]. Le Tombeau de Marguerite de Valois Royne de Navarre. Faict premierement en Disticques Latins par les trois Soeurs Princesses en Angleterre. Depuis traduictz en Grec, Italien, & François par plusieurs des excellentz Poëtes de la France. Auecques plusieurs Odes, Hymnes, Cantiques, Epitaphes, sur le mesme subiect. Paris: Michel Fezandat and Robert Granjon for Vincent Sertenas, 1551. Small 8vo, 161 x 100 mm. (6 3/8 x 3 15/16 in.), dark olive crushed morocco, gilt crowned initial "M"s at corners of covers and in four compartments of spine, the remaining two compartments gilt-lettered, double gilt fillet along board edges, narrow turn-ins gilt, red morocco doublures with Grolieresque gilt-tooled design of central arabesque cartouche from which emerge swirling gilt tendrils with gilt-hatched leaf and flower tools, g.e., by CAPÉ, slight scuffing to extremities, shoulder note of fols. A5 and A6 shaved, rule border to epitaph on last leaf cropped, lightly washed and pressed . FIRST EDITION, roman, italic and Greek type, woodcut printer's device on title, woodcut portrait of Marguerite at the age of 52 on verso of title, including FIRST PRINTINGS OF POEMS BY PIERRE DE RONSARD (four odes, including dedicatory verse), JOACHIM DU BELLAY, JEAN-ANTOINE DE BAÏF, AND JEAN DORAT (two poems each). Collection of verses edited by Denisot, in memory of Marguerite d'Angoulême or de Navarre (1492-1549), poet, patroness of letters and protectrice of Calvinists, known to her contemporaries as the "tenth muse". The main body of the text is a collective ployglot poem consisting of 68 Latin distichs by the sisters Jane, Anne, and Marguerite Seymour, pupils of Denisot, each couplet followed by translations into Greek and Italian by Jean Dorat and Jean Pierre de Mesmes respectively, and by two or three French translations, by du Bellay, Baïf, Denisot and Antoinette de Loynes. (A slightly different version in Latin only was published in Paris in 1550). The ancillary pieces that follow consist of odes and sonnets in French, Latin and Greek by the aforecited members of the Pléiade as well as by numerous lesser known poets, including Simonius Macrinus, the most gifted writer of Latin verse of the period, Martin Séguier and Jean Tagaud. Brunet V, 879 ("recueil curieux et dont les exemplaires sont peu communs"); Rothschild I, 628; Tchemerzine I, 118-19. NUC records one copy (Harvard). Provenance : Parisian library inkstamp on title (faded) -- Horace Landau, bookplate, inventory no. 3806.