Cyprian, Saint, pseudo-.

De Dovze Manieres D’Abvs…. Ensemble les Douze Regles de M. Ian Pic de la Mira[n]dole.

Paris, Fédéric Morel 1571.

8vo (155 x 100 mm.). 39, [1]p. Shoulder notes and the Mirandola, woodcut initials, woodcut headpiece for the dedication.

19th-century half brown morocco and marbled boards (rubbed), flat spine and title gilt.

Publisher of elegant illustrated books, literary first editions and royal commissions, Morel also had a taste for ancient Greek and Latin texts. The first work he published from his own hand was extracts put into French from John Chrysostom (1557). To his next translation (1558), offered here, Morel supplied commentary and source citations in the outer margins, and, to fill the final quire of this printing, he added his French version of Pico della Mirandola’s Twelve Rules for a Christian Life. In his dedication to the duc d’Angoulême, Henri de Valois (1551-86), MOREL DESCRIBED HIS PATRON’S VISIT TO THE PRINTING SHOP and the careful reworking of the text based on a new more correct edition. The booklet proved a success with ten printings in forty years: only two of these — each in a single example — are held by an American institution.  In good condition, ?contemporary title inscription of Jean Moumy of Sens, later in the church library of Saint-Pierre le Rond (title inscription dated 1747).
¶Dumoulin, Vie et œuvres de Fédéric Morel 187 (lists only this edition); Pettegree et al., French Vernacular Books 14978; USTC 61378.

Item #11514

Price: $2,650.00