Les Fables et la vie d'Esope, Latines et françoises. Avec trois amples Indices.

Genève, par Jean de Tournes, 1607. 16mo. 8 leaves. 336 pages. 7 leaves. (1 blank leaf). Full later vellum, ornate ribbed spine, all edges gilt, Josep Triadó's gilt bookplate in the center of the boards (early 20th century binding). A delightful bilingual edition of Aesop's fables, printed in Geneva in French and Latin by the famous printer Jean de Tournes. It is decorated with ninety-eight charming woodcut vignettes in the text, based on drawings by his favorite illustrator, Bernard Salomon (1506-1561). The text is printed in two columns: in ordinary type for the Latin and in civilité type for the French translation (prose). A painter and illustrator resident in Lyon, like his printing partner Jean de Tournes, who later exiled himself to Geneva to escape the Counter-Reformation, "Petit Bernard" - as he is also known - played a leading role in the emergence, from 1550 onwards, of the illustrated book with woodcut vignettes. This edition does not appear to be in any French institutional collection. Worldcat locates only two copies (Universitätsbibliothek Mannheim and Bibliothèque de Genève, which reproduces its copy in full online, despite its poor condition). A fine copy carefully bound at the turn of the 20th century for the Barcelona designer, engraver and painter Josep Triadó i Mayol (1870-1929), with his motto in Catalan stamped in gilded letters on the boards: "A bon seny no hi val engany". On Bernard Salomon, see Natalis Rondot, "Bernard Salomon Peintre et Tailleur d'Histoires à Lyon au XVIe siècle" (Lyon, 1897).