Facetie, motti, et burle, di diversi Signori, & persone private.

OWNED BY MADAME DE POMPADOUR

Title page with printer's woodcut device of David felling Goliath, woodcut initials. 

Sm. 8vo (145 x 100mm). [16]ff., 424pp. 18th-century French red morocco, with central gilt arms of Madame de Pompadour on upper and lower cover, triple gilt fillet, spine gilt in compartments with repeating floral stamp, contrasting label of green morocco, inside gilt dentelles, a.e.g. (minor wear to headcap). 

Venice: Paolo Ugolino,

An attractive copy of Lodovico Domenichi's popular collection of wit and humour, from the library of Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Madame de Pompadour (1721-64), with her distinctive arms.

Patron of the arts and sciences, intellectual, printer, salonnière, powerful political operative and consort of Louis XV, the Marquise de Pompadour assembled an extensive and wide-ranging library, which numbered over 3500 volumes at the time of her death. A friend and patron of Voltaire - who famously remarked that she 'is one of us' - among many other Enlightenment philosophes, a glance through the catalogue of her library reveals a great diversity of subjects and interests. Her books span the arts, science (including botany, entomology, astronomy), geometry, literature, poetry and plays both classical and contemporary - four of Henry Fielding's novels are listed - philosophy, devotional works, history and the classics; scattered amongst these are those like the present volume, burlesques, satires and collections of witticisms. The present volume is no.2000 in her library catalogue; no.1999 is an earlier version, dated 1568 of the same work. Another bibliophile, Charles de Rohan, Maréchal de Soubise who inherited the bulk of the magnificent library of De Thou, was one of the executors of her will (Gordon, p.312). 

Editor and translator Lodovico Domenichi's (1515-1564) collection contains sayings and facetie by and about a wide range of sources - writers, artists, sculptors and classical philosophers; Emperors, monarchs, diplomats, doges and popes; roman and napolitan noblewomen; and finally, a pig. The more prominent individuals with sayings attributed to them include Lorenzo & Giuliani de' Medici, Giovanni Strozzi, Baldassare Castiglione, Donatello, Leon Battista Alberti and Michelangelo. Celebrated women are included here too - Fiametta Soderini, poet Laura Battiferri, and courtesan Vincenza Copista, among others. First published in 1548, and the successor in a long tradition of such collections - Petrarch, in 1344, compiled facetiae from Cicero and Quintillan - the work was extremely popular and much reprinted over the course of the sixteenth century; Folger holds writer Gabriel Harvey's heavily annotated copy of an earlier edition of the work (Folger H.a.2). The present edition has prefatory letter, dated 1565, and an additional final section by Tommaso Porcacchi, writer, historian and cartographer (1530-85). 

Provenance:  1. Inscription 'sum Pauli Aldringen Emi Basileae 18 [?], Paul Graf von Aldringen (d.1646), coadjutor of the Bishop of Strasbourg; inscription indicates he purchased this volume in Basel. 2. Inscription 'Collegii S. Petri Jun. argent.', the Collegiate Church of New St Peter in Strasbourg at head of title page. 3. Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1721-1764), binding with her arms; lot 2000 in her sale, Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de feue Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. Paris: Herissant, 1765. The catalogue lists 3,525 lots of books, 235 lots of musical scores and 36 lots of prints, from 'une collection très considérable d'environ 4.000 volumes dans tous les genres' (Olivier 2399). 4. Exlibris of Franchetti to front pastedown, with motto 'veris memor'. 

CNCE, Edit 16 17583.

A.R. Gordon, 'The Dispersal of the estate of Madame de Pompadour: New documentary evidence', Burlington Magazine 148, 2006, pp. 312-24.. 

Stock Code: 252071