La Chesnaye, Nicolas I de. d. 1505.

La nef de sante Auec le gouuernail du corps humain et la conda[m]nacion des bancquetz a la louenge de diepte et sobriete, et le traictie des passions de lame.

Paris, Antoine Vérard [before 17 January 1508].

4to (209 x 155 mm.). [iv], [191], [1]p. Bâtarde type, double-column, multiple series of woodcut initials (some white-line), THIRTY TEXT WOODCUTS (both page- and column-width), Vérard’s woodcut device on the final verso, an anthropomorphic woodcut L and one line of woodcut text on the title.

Gilt-ruled red morocco (Thouvenin, front hinge worn), gilt spine and title, all edges gilt, red silk marker.

            First Edition, first issue, of this illustrated four-part guide to gastronomy and health. The Ship of Health recommends purging, airing living spaces and stocking a kitchen with healthy foods and good wine. The Rudder of the Human Body treats the weather, the seasons and the planets’ effects on wellbeing: its astrological woodcuts are first used here. The Treatise on the Passions of the Soul condemns exuberant love, haste, impatience and anger and is illustrated with eighteen chivalric romance woodcuts.
            The longest section is THE PLAY CONDEMNATION OF BANQUET: “A MONUMENT OF FRENCH LITERATURE” (Koopmans & Verhuyck, tr.). In 3644 verses, thirty-nine characters offer health and diet advice and CITE SOME SEVENTY MEDICAL, LEGAL, HISTORICAL AND LITERARY SOURCES. The Condemnation also includes specific stage directions, explicit set, prop and costume descriptions, and PRECISE NOTES ON CHOREOGRAPHY AND MUSIC. “In this finest of all moralités, the didactic and the comic, the allegorical and the real, are blended so perfectly and so naturally that one is scarcely conscious of the mixture” (Harvey).
            In the first half, seven Revelers (Good Company, Delicacy, I-Drink-to-You…) eat three increasingly decadent meals, hosted in turn by Dinner, Supper and Banquet. Dinner is a success, but after Supper, the Revelers are attacked by ten Diseases (Stones, Jaundice, Gout…). During Banquet, the Diseases return and kill four Revelers.
           In the second half, the survivors persuade Dame Experience to arrest and prosecute Supper and Banquet, providing “the only complete, authentic, and scrupulously realistic representation of the trial of a murderer to be found in the French comic theatre” (Harvey). Experience hears both sides’ testimony, consults her advisors (Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna and Averroes) and rejects torture to gain a confession. Supper defends himself and turns against Banquet, who admits to the murders and is sentenced to death. Experience orders Supper to stay six leagues (i.e., six hours) from Dinner and to wear lead handcuffs to prevent him from carrying too much to the table. Just prior to his execution, Banquet catalogs the drugs that apothecaries market to treat the ills he causes, then bids adieu to fifteen beloved spices.
            Displaying a mastery of medical and gastronomic terminology, the play employs a half-dozen metrical forms, some character-specific — like distichs for the Diseases and rondels for the servers. “THE VERBAL EXUBERANCE OF SEVERAL SPEECHES IS WORTHY OF RABELAIS” (Akehurst).
            “The author of our morality play has provided a hyper-accurate representation of early Renaissance banqueting practices and culinary tastes” (Tomasik). The sumptuous courses include game (venison, hazel grouse, plover…), rich sauces (cameline, cretonnée, galantine…) and regional wines (Mâcon, Montsaugeon, Saint-Pourçain…).
            The Condemnation is famously the subject of contemporary stained glass and tapestries, and it has been performed, adapted and reinterpreted from the time of its composition to the 20th century. Renward Cysat’s 1593 production for the Lucerne Weinmarkt Carnival was among the most ambitious, with 9,500 lines, twenty-one acts and one hundred ten characters, while Emma Wirzka-Tigy’s one-act Male Fin ou le Repas trop copieux (1909) was sparer.
            VÉRARD WAS THE SECOND PUBLISHER TO OBTAIN A FRENCH ROYAL PRIVILEGE TO PROTECT HIS BOOK PRODUCTION, AND THE NEF DE SANTÉ IS ARGUABLY HIS FIRST EDITION SO SAFEGUARDED, in this case for three years. The present example is the earliest issue: “Some copies, apparently printed before the grant of the privilege, have no date and no privilege” (Armstrong). On the expiration of Vérard’s privilege, Michel Le Noir immediately reprinted the book (April 1511).
           NO COPY OF ANY EDITION IS HELD OUTSIDE EUROPEAN COLLECTIONS. In good condition (wormholes throughout, more numerous in the first half of the book, touching letters but not affecting legibility, two leaves stained), scattered contemporary marginal notes (faded).
            This copy comes from the libraries of bibliophiles François-Victor Masséna, prince d’Essling (1799-1863; Catalogue (16.II.1846) 9), Edward Vernon Utterson (1775/6-1856), Walter Sneyd (1809-88; Catalogue (1903) 538), Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919; Davies, Catalogue… Early French Books 394) and Jean Bourdel (1890-1971).

The Quotes:
La Chesnaye, La Condamnation de banquet edd. Koopmans & Verhuyck 7; Harvey, The Theatre of the Basoche 52-69; Akehurst, “Seeing Justice Done: Courtroom Scenes in Medieval French Theatre” in Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 25 (2013) 75-91; Tomasik, “From Carnival to Cockaigne: Banquet and Gaster as Humanist Anti-Heroes in Early Modern France” in Food & History 21 (2023) 55-74; Armstrong, Before Copyright: The French Book-Privilege System 1498-1526 21-2 & 238,2.

The Edition:
Macfarlane, Antoine Vérard 177; Bechtel, Catalogue des gothiques français 1476-1560 2^e éd. N-8 “seconde [sic] éd. de Vérard”; Moreau, Inventaire chronologique des éditions parisiennes du XVI^e siècle I: 132; BP16 100962, état B; Brunet IV: 32-3 “fort rare”.

The Play:
Soleinne, Bibliothèque dramatique 635 “Très-rare”; Greco-Kaufmann, “Performances of La Condamnation de Banquet (around 1500) and Convivii Process (1593)” in European Medieval Drama 29 (2025) 81-95; Koopmans, “La fin du Banquet” in Mainte belle oeuvre faicte: Études…offertes à Graham A. Runnalls edd. Hüe et al. (2005) 251-64.

Gastronomy & Medicine:
Vicaire, Bibliographie gastronomique [618]-621; Simon, Bibliotheca gastronomica 337 & Bibliotheca bacchica II: 137; Livres en bouche. Cinq siècles d’art culinaire français (21.XI.2001-17.II.2002) 36; Julien, “La Condamnation de Banquet (XV^e-XVI^e s.)” in Revue d’histoire de la pharmacie 75/272 (1987) 5-15 & “Suite” in idem 75/273 (1987) 97-120.

Item #12615

Price: $46,000.00