Le Rozier Des Gverres Composé Par Le Fev Roy Lois XI.…Povr…le Daulphin Charles son fils…Et…vn Traitté De L’Institvtion Dv Ievne Prince.
Paris, N. Buon 1616.
8vo (173 x 108 mm.). [xxxii], 84, [10], 216p.
Gilt-ruled blue morocco (Capé; rear cover slightly scuffed), gilt spine and title, gilt board edges and turn-ins, all edges gilt, parti-colored silk marker.
Only Edition of The Education of a Young Prince (216p.) by the alchemist, atomist, witch-hunter and president of the Bordeaux parlement. The dedicatee, Louis XIII (1601-43), was on the eve of his independent rule of France at the time of publication.
The first half concerns the cultivation from infancy of the prince’s reason and self-mastery by wise tutors. The second addresses prudence, strength, temperance, justice, mercy and generosity. For Espagnet, THE UPBRINGING OF A JUST SOVEREIGN IS AKIN TO CREATING THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE, restoring harmony to the realm by perfecting the monarch.
Espagnet was inspired to write his work after discovering what he believed an unpublished manuscript of the Rosier, a 15th-century collection of princely maxims addressed to Charles VIII (1470-98; at the time attributed to his father Louis XI). Espagnet included here a semi-diplomatic transcription of this manuscript (84p.), unaware that it contained only the first part of the text and that the whole had already been printed around 1489 (two copies known). In good condition (outer and lower margins of title neatly supplied), late 19th-century manuscript notes in French on the Rosier laid in.
¶Dessens, The Alchemical Order…the Philosophy and Cosmology of Jean d’Espagnet (2022 Diss.) 44-73; Ferguson, Bibliotheca chemica I: 250; Brunet III: 1185.
Price: $3,800.00