Rervm In Gallia Ob Religionem Gestarvm, Libri Tres.
[Geneva, J. Crespin] 1570.
8vo (175 x 104 mm.). [xii], 117 [r. 177], [7] leaves.
Contemporary vellum, overlapping edges, manuscript spine title, remnants of four leather ties, blue edges.
With: Serres, Jean de.
Supplicatio Carolo IX Gal. Regi. [Geneva, J. Crespin] 1570. 8vo. 24p.
Ad I-II: First Editions, the launch of one of the most influential Protestant histories penned in the Renaissance. Covering the French Wars of Religion from September 1557 to January 1562, this (I) is the first draft of what became his celebrated five-volume Commentaries on the State of Religion and of the Republic in France (1571-80), many times reprinted in Latin and in French. He indicts Catholics for their persecution of Huguenots and defends the latter against charges of sedition, grounding his narrative in documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts, which he personally gathered. A kind of appendix, the Supplication (II) supports the main narrative, with which it is often bound (as here), and both works are attributed to Crespin on typographic evidence. Henri IV elevated de Serres to Royal Historian.
In an eight-line inscription dated 1583, Ludwig Rudt (or Heß) presented this volume to Heidelberg noble, Imperial Steward and royal tutor Marquard von Hodenberg (1563-1629; he signed the title in 1588). He read and annotated the text with an eye to doctrinal differences among various confessions as well as civil unrest, underlining and glossing the text, for instance, at the account of the 1561 riot of St. Médard in Paris. In excellent condition.
¶Vermaseren, “La Première édition des Commentaires de Jean de Serres” in Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 23 (1961) 117-20; Hauser, Les Sources de l’histoire de France : XVIe siècle 1263 & 1476; Chaix-Dufour-Moeckli, Les Livres imprimés à Genève de 1550 à 1600 75; Gilmont, Bibliographie des editions de Jean Crespin 70/11 & 70/12 & reprodd. II: 268 & 272; Haag, La France protestante X: 263.
Price: $3,600.00