Histoires prodigieuses... extraictes de plusieurs fameux autheurs, Grecs & Latins, sacrez & prophanes: mises en nostre langue par P. Boaistuau, surnomé Launay, natif de Bretagne: avec les pourtraicts

£10,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

First edition of this wonderful, illustrated compendium of fantastic stories by writer, editor and translator Pierre Boaistuau (c.1520-1566). Each of the forty chapters here explores the weird and wonderful, monstrous and grotesque; from supernatural events and portents, to omens and various wondrous phenomena. Extremely wide-ranging, the stories here are drawn from a wide variety of biblical, folkloric and classical sources; Boaistuau is at pains to point out the breadth of his source material in his introduction to readers, as well as its scientific merit. Amongst the wondrous and supernatural monstres described here are creatures of the deep (pp.54-64); the satyr, that appeared to St Anthony in the desert (p.41), resembling a man but with a ‘hideous hooked nose, two horns, and cloven goat’s hooves’; a seven-headed serpent bought by the Venetians in Africa (Chapter 32, pp.1140-148); a footless bird (Chapter 34); and others. Boaistuau also recounts historical and contemporary events. Chapter 11 recounts the death of Pliny and the eruption of Vesuvius (pp.34-36); Chapter 25 gives an account of ‘Banquetz Prodigieux’, extraordinary displays of gluttony and profligacy, drawn from historical sources (pp.96-104), and ending with a woodcut portrait of Denis Heracleot, a fabled ancient tyrant who attempted to lose weight by using leeches. Chapter 8 describes ‘a man of our times who washes his face and hands in molten lead’ (pp.27-29). Frequently the contemporary and fantastical over

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