[L’Image du monde]. Sensuyt lymaige du monde.

Contena[n]t en soy tout le mo[n]de mis en .iii. p[ar]ties/ cestassauoir/ asie: afriq[ue]/ et europe. Auec les pays. prouinces et citez et les merueilleuses et diuerses creatures q[ui] sont dedans co[n]tena[n]t en soy trois p[ar]ties co[n]e il ap[ar]t cy ap[re]s en la table de ca p[re]sent liure… [Paris : Alain Lotrian, circa 1520]. Small quarto (186 x 138 mm), nineteenth-century red morocco by Chambolle-Duru for Baron Pichon, the boards ruled and decorated in gilt with an image of Columbus’s ship in each corner, spine in compartments with raised bands, lettered and tooled in gilt; all edges gilt; pp. [26], woodcut circular diagrammatic map of the universe on title-page, woodcut printer’s device on final leaf; housed in a modern half morocco folding case.

Gautier de Metz (also Gauthier, Gossuin, or Gossouin) was a French Catholic priest and poet of the thirteenth century, best known as the author of the encyclopaedic poem L’Image du Monde. Written in 1245, this popular work drew upon earlier Latin texts such as Honorius of Autun’s Imago mundi, Jacques de Vitry’s Historia Hierosolymitana, Alexander Neckham’s De naturis rerum, and Alain de Lille’s Anticlaudianus. Divided into three parts, the work blends historical fact with fantasy to create a pseudo-scientific text explaining the cosmology, geography, zoology and astronomy of the world. The poem was later turned into prose form, circulating in manuscript for the next two centuries.

The first printed edition (titled The Myrrour of the Worlde) was the English translation by William Caxton (Westminster, 1481); its several woodcuts qualify it as the first illustrated book in the English language. This French edition published in Paris by Lotrian around 1520 is extremely rare, the only two other recorded copies being those in the British Library (probably formerly owned by Sir Hans Sloane) and the Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel.

The present copy comes with extraordinary provenance, being the Columbus-Pichon-Fairfax Murray-Perrette copy, a volume that has been treasured in some of the world’s most distinguished private libraries over six centuries.

Provenance:

Ferdinand Columbus (1488-1539), son of the explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), and the greatest bibliophile of his day, who amassed a collection of over 15,000 volumes largely relating to travel, geography and cosmography inspired by his father’s interest and exploits in exploration and discovery. Ferdinand funded the acquisition of books for his library largely from income earnt from his father’s demesne in the New World, and accompanied him on his fourth voyage to the Americas in 1502-04.

Biblioteca Colombina, Seville, bookplate to verso of endpaper (identical to examples in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.);

Baron Jérôme-Frederic Pichon (1812-1896), President, Société des Bibliophiles François (France’s oldest rare book-collectors’ society), considered the greatest book collector of the nineteenth century. The present copy is in a binding specially executed for him, and bears his gilt-lettered red morocco bookplate on upper pastedown with the legend ‘memor fui dierum antiquorum PS. CXLII ‘ (‘I was mindful of ancient days’, from one of the Apocryphal Psalms), and a manuscript note ‘Exemplar de Fernard Colomb mort en 1539, fils de Christophe Colomb. acheté en 1885 … Edition non citée’ on preliminary blank;

His sale, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de feu M. le Baron Jérôme Pichon. Paris, Techener, 3-14 May 1897, lot 292;

Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), English bibliophile, art collector, and close associate of William Morris and the pre-Raphaelites, his collection label ‘288’ to upper pastedown.

Catalogue of a collection of early French books in the library of C. Fairfax Murray, compiled by Hugh Wm. Davies. London : Holland Press, 1961, number 288 (this copy, ‘Probably the only copy of an edition unknown to Brunet’).

Jean R. Perrette, Christie’s New York, Sale 12259, Important Travel, Exploration, and Cartography, April 5 2016, lot 14 (USD $70,000 – $100,000, not sold).

J. F. Letenneur Livres Rare (consultant adviser to Mr. Perrette).

Acquired from the above.