Le Cabinet De Minerve.
Paris, M. Guillemot 1596.
12mo (133 x 71 mm.). [xii], 288 leaves. Woodcut Guillemot title device.
18th-century gilt-ruled citron morocco (minor wear at extremities), flat spine with a gilt double-rule around three vertical stripes, the title gilt-stamped on a circular morocco label within a border of rosettes and a gilt bow “tying” it to the center stripe, bronze-varnish paper endleaves in a star-and-dot pattern, all edges gilt over marbling.
FIRST EDITION OF THIS REMARKABLE NOVEL WHICH “SITS AT THE CROSSROADS OF TWO GENRES THAT ARE THEORETICALLY INCOMPATIBLE: that of tales of chivalric and gallant adventures…and that of philosophical and scientific texts” (Fanlo, tr.).
The plot is structured around the visit of a group of men and women to the Palace of Minerve and their encounters with the marvelous objects in her Cabinet of Curiosities. “Precisely the sort of place advocated by mnemonic treatises” (Kenny), THIS IMAGINARY MUSEUM WAS ALSO LIKELY INSPIRED BY REAL CABINETS VISITED BY THE AUTHOR, including those of Denys Bauduin in Tours (mentioned in Encounter XVI), and of Paul Contant in Poitiers (Béroalde contributed a laudatory poem to Contant’s 1609 catalog).
The guests and Minerve’s nymph attendants discuss, i.a., the creation of the universe, the soul, color, theory of vision, the androgyne, love, beauty, scientific instruments, the senses, the vacuum, judicial astrology, dreams, minerals, cabala, memory, mirrors, natural magic and tales of chivalry.
“The last survivor of the Renaissance” (Barbier-Müller, tr.), Béroalde de Verville was an eccentric and prolific writer who translated into French the famous Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, from which he borrows a few set-pieces here — alongside fragments of his own earlier work, cut up, rearranged and embedded into the new plot.
The Cabinet of Minerve was issued in both Paris and Tours and later republished as the fifth part of Béroalde’s Adventures of Floride. A charming copy (some old dampstaining around the edges, a few minor stains), scattered reader’s marks and underlining, morocco bookplates of Robert Hoe (1839-1909, Catalog (1912) 410) and J.-P. Barbier-Müller.
¶Kenny, The Palace of Secrets: Béroalde de Verville and Renaissance conceptions of Knowledge passim; Fanlo, “Image édifiante et poisson soluble: La Pietà du Cabinet de Minerve” in Béroalde de Verville 1556-1626 57-82; Barbier-Müller, Ma Bibliothèque poétique IV(1): 28; Gay & Lemonnyer, Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs à l’amour, aux femmes et au mariage I: 440.
Price: $7,800.00