DE RE VESTIARIA

Paris: [Jean Bignan] apud Ambroise Girault, 1535. 163 x 108 mm. (6 1/2 x 4 1/4"). 68 pp., [5] leaves.Edited by Charles Estienne.
Old (17th century?) stiff vellum, flat spine title in ink. Front pastedown with book plate of the Macclesfield South Library, first two leaves with very small Macclesfield embossed stamp. Colas USTC 204573. See Renouard, "Estienne," p. 42, #16. ◆Vellum on rear cover roughened, small water spot to front cover, but the binding entirely sound, and quite fresh and clean internally.

Abridged and edited for schoolchildren by the scholar, physician, and printer Charles Estienne, this is a treatise on the customary dress and fashions in ancient Rome. It is among the best-known works of the distinguished humanist and diplomat Lazare de Baïf (1485-1547), who also produced respected translations of the Greek dramatists and published treatises on other aspects of ancient life, including vases and ships. Charles Estienne (1504 or 1505-64) for a time served as tutor to Baïf's son Jean Antoine, who became a famous poet. Charles' brother Robert also published this title in 1535, but Renouard believes Girault's printing might have come first. (Colas gives priority to the Estienne press.) Because Girault's printing contains additions and corrections that don't appear in Robert's edition, it seems more likely that this was the later printing, if only by a matter of weeks. The Girault edition is uncommon in the marketplace. The provenance is significant here. "The Library of the Earls of Macclesfield Removed from Shirburn Castle" was offered by Sotheby's in 12 sales, from 16 March, 2004, to 2 October, 2008. The 9th Earl Macclesfield, Richard Timothy George Mansfield Parker, who was described by the Independent newspaper as leading an "unconventional lifestyle," was forced to leave his 14th century home after a protracted family dispute. Called by the paper "a sleeping beauty of a castle," Shirburn had a moat, a drawbridge and, at the time of the Earl's departure, a repair bill of approximately £2.6 million. Despite the building's dilapidation, the books in the very large library were distinguished for being uniformly well preserved, were almost always in their original bindings, and were a sensation at auction for more than 4 1/2 years..