[Poemata] Andini poematum libri quatuor : Elegiæ. Varia Epigr[ammata]. Amores [Faustinae]. Tumuli.

A rare first edition, of which no subsequent reprint exists, complete with all his Neo-Latin poems, chiefly composed in Rome. The volume also contains two Greek poems at ff. 60 and 62, together with a poem which inspired the celebrated sonnet Happy he who like Ulysses.

Modern binding in full limp vellum, smooth spine, red edges, white pastedowns and endleaves.

Some defects within: discreet restoration to inner margin of title verso; small tear without loss at foot of ff. 2-3; dampstaining to lower margin of ff. 25-28 and 45-48; minimal marginal defect to f. 44, not affecting text.

Published in March 1558, this precious copy contains four books of Latin poems - Elegiæ, Varia Epigr[ammata], Amores [Faustinae], Tumuli - written by Du Bellay in Rome and Paris between 1553 and 1557. The collection, also referred to as Poemata or Œuvres latines, appeared in the same year as three other works from his Roman period: Les Regrets, Divers Jeux Rustiques, and Les Antiquitez de Rome.

"Évitons de nous aventurer trop avant dans l’analyse des Poemata, de peur que nous soyons contraints de revisiter notre perception du poète et de nous engager dans des pensées qu’il serait préférable de laisser inexplorées."

Henri Chamard

[Let us not venture too far into analyzing the Poemata, for fear we might have to reassess our view of the poet and engage with ideas perhaps better left unexamined.]

In his 1549 manifesto, the Angevin poet railed against the "whitewashers of walls" and their Neo-Latin poetry. Yet four years later, in the Eternal City, he too turned to writing in both languages. Unlike his other "Roman" collections—Les Regrets, Les Antiquitez de Rome, and Divers Jeux Rustiques—all written in French, the Poemata were composed entirely in Latin, the universal language. In the piece Ad Lectorem (f. 16), Du Bellay attempts to justify this apparent contradiction. To defend himself, he uses a striking image:

"Gallica Musa mihi est, fateor, quod nupta marito:

Pro Domina colitur Musa Latina mihi."

[My French Muse is, I admit, like a wife to her husband. But I court the Latin Muse as a mistress.]

Another muse accompanied the poet during his Roman exile: Faustine, whose "light" (f. 37) pervades the Amores. On folio 37 of this copy, Du Bellay calls her by various names: she is at once Pandora, gifted with all the gods' blessings, and also Colombe or Colomba. 

 "Du Bellay l'aima vraiment, non plus de tête, comme il avait aimé Olive, mais avec son cœur et sa chair, d'une passion ardente, fougueuse, tourmentée."

Henri Chamard

[Du Bellay truly loved her—not as an intellectual exercise, as he had loved Olive, but with his heart and body, with a passion that was ardent, fierce, and tormented.]

The Faustine of the Poemata is a true Roman. Thierry Sandre's translation captures her portrait: "she had dark eyes, dark hair, a broad forehead white as snow, rose-colored lips, and breasts sculpted by Love's own hands. Rome had never seen, and would never see, a more beautiful woman; Faustine was captivating." By 1558, near the end of his life, Du Bellay no longer sang of abstract love as he had in his early French collections, especially in L'Olive in 1549. In Rome, exposed to Latin poetry and Latin women alike, Du Bellay gave himself over freely and shamelessly. "What a difference between Olive and Faustine! The young Roman did not Petrarchize: the affair was perfectly simple" (Les amours de Faustine, introduction by Thierry Sandre). But Faustine's husband soon intervened—"too cold, and ugly, and old" ("Sed quod frigidulus conjux, turpisque, senexque" f. 36), "that savage" ("ferus" f. 34)—bringing to an end the brief but genuine romance between the French nobleman and the Italian noblewoman.

When Du Bellay left Rome at the end of his fourth summer there, Jean Dorat, his former teacher at the Collège de Coqueret, mocked the return of his brilliant pupil. In his view, by returning to his homeland, Du Bellay was indeed reclaiming the vernacular tongue of ordinary mortals, but at the cost of forsaking the immortal pleasures of Latin. Scévole de Sainte-Marthe shared that opinion in his Elogia virorum illustrium qui superiori seculo in Gallia floruerunt pietate, doctrina, literis:

"Si pauci sint qui in Gallica poesi parem habeant, pauciores sunt qui in Latina majores habeant."

[If hardly anyone equals him in French poetry, there are very few who surpass him in Latin verse.]

The fortunate Roman odyssey of the “French Ovid” enabled his art to reach its fullest expression with Les Regrets, which includes his finest sonnets — among them the immortal Ulysse. A kinship exists between this masterpiece of French poetry and our copy of the Poemata, both composed at the same time. Sainte-Beuve saw the Latin version as the crucible of the celebrated sonnet Happy he who like Ulysses — whose original form, therefore, does not lie in the national tongue, but in the Latin verses of the poem Patriae desiderium.

"Felix qui mores multorum vidit et urbes, / Sedibus et potuit consenuisse suis !" (f. 35)

[Heureux qui a vu les mœurs et les villes de beaucoup de peuples, et a pu vieillir dans son propre foyer.]

[Happy he who has seen the customs and cities of many peoples, and has been able to grow old in his own home.]

The Poemata reveal the decisive influence of Latin poetry on Du Bellay’s vernacular art of poetry. His French writings would not be the same without this classical foundation. It was therefore within a polyphonic context that the versifier fully distinguished himself in French poetry. This unique collection also includes dedicatory pieces and addresses to notable figures of the French Renaissance — among them Du Bellay’s lyrical companion and close friend Pierre de Ronsard, and Marguerite of France, daughter of François Ier and chief patron of the poets of the Pléiade.

Rare first edition of the Poemata, a work from Du Bellay’s Roman period which, quite unexpectedly, reveals the author of the Défense et illustration de la langue française as a leading Neo-Latin poet. This little-studied collection was composed during the final decade of his life, in which the poet speaks candidly of Faustina — a tangible mistress rather than a literary conceit — and of his longing for his homeland, the very source of Du Bellay’s most beautiful works.