Philippe DESPORTES

First edition. The title page of the Poesies chrestiennes is dated 1601. Publisher's devices on title pages.
Half wine-colored glazed calf binding ca 1830 in the style of Thouvenin. Spine with raised bands decorated with 3 blind tools and roulettes. Gilt title labels on calf. Marbled edges.
Philippe Desportes (1546-1606), considered by his contemporaries as the greatest living poet, provides the literary transition between Ronsard and Malherbe. Desportes' design was to give French Catholics a translation that would be the equivalent of that of Marot and Theodore de Bèze for the reformed. First published in 1591, numbering sixty, the psalms were increased to one hundred in 1598, an

New edition ornamented with an engraved title-frontispiece drawn by Léonard Gautier.
Contemporary full brown sheep binding. Richly ornamented spine with raised bands. Red morocco title label. Top headcap torn with lacks to joints. Joints cracked at foot. 2 wormholes at foot, and 2 others along the upper joint at foot. Corners slightly bumped. Yellowed paper.
Desportes' poetry was durably influenced and shaped by Italian literature. The author indeed returns to France after a journey to Italy where he fell under the influence of Petrarch - his first poems were moreover criticized as neo-Petrarchism. His first book appeared in a collective volume and gathered his poems imitated from

New edition printed on laid paper.
Half navy blue morocco binding, spine slightly faded with five raised bands set with black fillets, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, top edge gilt.
Work illustrated with a frontispiece engraving.
A trace of a bookseller's description label on an endpaper.
Handsome set in a charming uniform signed contemporary binding.

Edition illustrated with a portrait and a fleuron by R. Drouart, one of 50 copies on vergé Pannekoek reserved for friends of la Connaissance and justified by the publisher, deluxe copy.
Manuscript justification by publisher René-Louis Doyon: "pour Jean Dorsenne".
A black portrait as frontispiece.
Fine copy.