Devises heroiques. Lyon, Jean de Tournes and Guillaume Gazeau,

£5,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A fine and large copy of the preferred edition of ‘one of the most influential early emblematic works’ which includes devices for many French royals including the crowned salamander of François I, the three crescents of Henri II and the crowned porcupine of Louis XII. It was the first book devoted to devices of historical persons, and served as a model book for artists and printers, useful for the latters publisher’s devices. Paradin’s second edition was greatly enlarged with 70 woodcuts of new subjects and, as Mortimer notes, “Paradin has added a considerable amount of explanatory text to the devices, and it is this edition which was widely copied.” Now in the larger 8vo format rather than the 16mo, there are 70 new woodcut, 104 blocks from the first edition of 1551, a further eight replacements while six have been omitted entirely; mottoes have also been changed for some of the blocks. “More significantly the nature of the work is changed: the original version giving a set of basic devices comprising woodcut figure plus motto, is transformed in 1557 by the addition at the end of each device of a French commentary explaining its significance, and identifying the person who used it, or - in the case of the unattributed devices - the universally applicable lesson which could be derived from them. In this new form - which became the norm for subsequent editions - Paradin’s work is thus far more informative and overtly moralistic than in its original text-free form. Its increase

• Year: 1557

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