Jean-Baptiste Girin

First edition illustrated with a folding map of the city as frontispiece, a title vignette with the city's arms, a plate depicting the tomb of the two lovers, and 116 armorial plates.
Copy with the arms of the city of Lyon stamped in gilt on the boards.
Contemporary full blonde sheep binding. Spine with five raised bands richly decorated. Red title and volume labels. Gilt fillet frame on boards with the arms of the city of Lyon. All edges red. Some rubbing and scuffing.
The history of Lyon was compiled from the works of several authors, notably Father Ménestrier. The work records the échevins and councillors up to 1597, and includes the arms of all échevins and prévôts des marchands. The work was commissioned by a prévôt des marchands for practical purposes, to make known the history of the city of Lyon, its wealth and monuments to new magistrates, in a simple and readable manner.

A rare composite seventeenth-century edition of The Fables of La Fontaine, richly illustrated with 257 engraved copper headpieces adorning nearly every fable. These illustrations are the third copy made after François Chauveau's engravings, and are notably larger than their predecessors.

Contemporary brown calf, spines with five raised bands decorated in four compartments in gilt featuring stylized acanthus leaf motifs, tawny morocco label, red speckled edges, gilt palmette and foliate edge-roll, marbled endpapers.

Discreet restorations to spines, joints, and corners, gilding faded on board edges, raised bands, and headcaps, stain to inner margin affecting the first thirty pages of volume one.

Inside the copies : in volume 1, small losses to first blank endpaper, second blank endpaper missing; in volume 2, pagination error at p. 83, leaves I3 and G3 missigned as I2 and G5. 

 

With two engraved frontispieces, the first by R. de Hooge dated 1699, the second, original, depicting Aesop surrounded by animals. This copy also contains a portrait of the fabulist after H. Rigaud engraved by E. Desrochers, and several headpieces and tailpieces throughout.

 

Complete with the epistle to Monseigneur le Dauphin, the author's preface, the life of Aesop the Phrygian, the author's notice for the second collection of The Fables, the discourse to Madame de la Sablière, and the dedication to Madame de Montespan.