La vie de Messire Jean d'Aranthon d'Alex, eveque et prince de Geneve.

First edition, adorned with a portrait frontispiece, drawn in ink and signed Dalex. The polychrome drawing is set within a frame traced in brown ink and accompanied by the Latin motto "gratia in me vacua non fuit" as well as the legend "Messire Jean d'Aranthon". An engraved head-piece depicting Christ and angels, with a few further head- and tail-pieces.

Contemporary brown calf, spine with five raised bands, gilt title, gilt compartments and fleurons between the bands, gilt roll on the turn-ins. Binding lightly rubbed, with some abrasions and losses, the joint of the upper board slightly split at the head, a few light foxing marks to the leaves, some marginal dampstaining, blank leaf at the end of the volume torn, small wormhole from page 543 onward. First pastedown painted red and the second yellow. The engraved frontispiece by Bouchet that ordinarily adorns this edition has been replaced by the ink drawing. Manuscript ex-libris "J J Le Boiteux" and monogram AP in ink on the first pastedown.

A conventional biography of Jean d'Arenthon (1620-1695), a native of Savoy destined for a career in the Church as a great prelate. Appointed Bishop of Geneva in 1661, upon the death of Charles-Auguste de Sales (1660), he waged a determined struggle against Jansenism and Quietism. His episcopate, one of the most notable in the history of the diocese of Geneva after that of Saint Francis de Sales, saw the canonization of the latter in 1665.

This copy, as evidenced by the manuscript ex-libris, the monogram, and the signature on the frontispiece, was carefully preserved across several generations of owners - one of whom even enriched it with a drawn portrait, charming in its naive style.