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Gordon
1547 .M37
(Click
on the call number to view the digital facsimile of
the book.)
Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses
tresillustres royne de Nauarre.
A Lyon: Par Iean de Tournes, 1547.
Description: 2 v. in 1: ill.; 18 cm. (octavo)
Published in Lyon by Jean de Tournes
in 1547, this first edition of the Marguerites
provides a beautiful example of the italic type
designed by Robert Granjon. One of
the most influential of the Lyonnese printers, Jean
de Tournes used Granjon's types with the illustrations
and ornaments by Bernard Salomon to
produce some of the most beautiful books of the French
Renaissance. Salomon's woodcuts illustrate "La
Coche" and he designed the arabesque ornaments
that grace many pages of the Marguerites and
lend elegance and originality to this and other works
published by Jean de Tournes. |
Le miroir de
l'âme pécheresse
The presence of embellished initial letters in print
was a carryover from the era of illuminated manuscripts.
The first letter in each of the poems of this edition
of the Marguerites is treated in this way.
For a discussion of the initial and its symbolism
in the poetry of Marguerite de Navarre, see pages
99-103 in The Grammar of Silence (Catholic
U of America P, 1986) by Robert Cottrell
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The marginal annotations here and elsewhere were
added by the editor and printer. The notes on this
page indicate the text's allusions to the letters
of St. Paul.
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La Coche
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The woodcut illustrations were the work of Bernard
Salomon. When making the woodcuts, Salomon reportedly
followed the captions provided by Marguerite herself
in the unillustrated manuscript copies of the text
to indicate what she wanted represented in the illustrations
that were to be added later. (For more on this, see
Marichal's critical edition of La Coche and
Robert Cottrell's discussion of the interplay between
text and "graphic encodement" in the Grammar
of Silence (Catholic U of America Press, 1986),
p. 234-241.
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Also in the Gordon Collection at the University
of Virginia
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Gordon 1558. M28
Marguerites de la marguerite des princesses...
A Paris: Par Iehan Ruelle...,1558.
Description: 394, [5] leaves; 12 cm. (16mo)
This is a smaller, much less elegant edition of the
text than the one first published in 1547 by Jean
de Tournes, as the sample images below will attest.
This later edition (the last of the five sixteenth-century
editions), however, does include the same woodcuts
for La Coche as appeared in the earlier Lyonnais
edition.
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Le miroir de l'âme pécheresse
 Page 1
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 Page 2
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La coche
 Page 1
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 Page 2
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Further Reading
Cottrell, Robert. The Grammar of Silence: a reading
of Marguerite de Navarre's poetry . Catholic Universtiy
of America Press, 1986.
Sommers, Paula. Celestial ladders : readings in Marguerite
de Navarre's poetry of spiritual ascent. Genève
: Droz, 1989.
Shell, Marc. Elizabeth's glass : with "The glass
of the Sinful Soul" (1544) by Elizabeth I, and "Epistle
dedicatory" & "Conclusion" (1548) by
John Bale. University of Nebraska Press, c1993. Includes
transcription of Elizabeth I's translation of Marguerite
of Navarre's Le miroir de l'âme pécheresse.
Available online at www.netlibrary.com (through subscribing
librairies).
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