Les nouvelles de Marguerite, Reine de Navarre [Heptameron français] Marguerite d'Angoulême, Queen of Navarre[; illust. Sigmund Freudenberger] [Near F

Second Freudenberger-illustrated edition. Three volumes. Bern: Nouvelle Société Typographique: 1792. Octavo (7 5/8"" x 5 9/16"", 193mm x 116mm). [Full collation available.] With three engraved title-page, an engraved frontispiece and 73 engraved plates, plus 72 engraved head-pieces and 72 engraved tail-pieces (integral with the text). Without frontispieces to voll. II & III, as usual. Bound in contemporary red straight-grained morocco with a gilt floral roll border. On the spine, six panels. Title and author gilt to the second, number gilt to the fourth. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. Gilt roll of grape-vines to the inside dentelle. Turquoise marbled end-papers. All edges of the text-block gilt. Green silk marking ribbons. Some rubbing to the spines, with worm-holes to the hinges of voll. I & III. Altogether a lovely unsophisticated set, with very good margins. Tanning to II.L1-8, II.O2-V2 and III overall, mostly mild but moderate in passages. Pll. 2-6 and 13 of vol. I numbered (3-7, 14; i.e., counting the frontispiece as pl. 1) in ink in an old hand at the lower edge. Marguerite, Queen of Navarre (1492-1549) was a humanist on the level of Castiglione and Erasmus, with whom she corresponded (he more enthusiastic about her than she him). Born to Charles d'Orléans, Count of Angoulême (a great-grandson of Charles V of France), she married (after an unpleasant and unproductive first marriage) Henry II of Navarre in 1526. Her greater stage was, however, the court of her brother, who ruled as François I, one of France's most celebrated kings. There the brother-and-sister court attracted Leonardo da Vinci and Sebastiano Serlio, Rabelais and Ronsard. Marguerite was, perhaps, the more intellectually curious; she was a deep religious thinker, and an exemplary figure in the attempt to reconcile the Reformation through humanist endeavor. The Heptaméron -- modelled on Boccaccio's Decameron, published around 1350; Marguerite died before completing the tenth day, being two stories into the eighth -- which might be rendered ""the week book"" -- from Greek hepta, seven + hêmera, day -- is a collection of 72 intertwined short stories, most of a distinctly romantic or even bawdy character. These stand in sharp contrast to her works of poetry, which are much more concerned with matters divine. Although the text was brought out 1558 by the humanist Pierre Boaistuau, his editorial pen was rather sharp, rearranging the work and omitting a good deal of the connective tissue between stories. The text has suffered rises and falls through the years; Cohen-de Ricci calls the present edition an ""edition incorrecte, qui a surtout le grand défaut de ne pas donner le texte original de la Reine de Navarre."" The great triumph of this edition -- a production of the Nouvelle Société Typographique, a Swiss publisher that was until 1779 the Société typographique -- is its illustration. The first edition (1780-1781-1781) is nearly identical, down to the mispagination of vol. I (viz. 166 2161-165, blank, 167 168). Cohen-de Ricci celebrates the images: ""les figures, quoique un peu raides, sont très jolies et gravées avec une finesse remarquable."" Sigmund Freudenberger (sometimes Freudeberg, with various spellings of the given name; 1745-1801) was a pupil of Boucher, the father of the ""estampe galante,"" a particular type of engraving with frivolous and often erotic undertones. Purchased at Sotheby's Paris 9 November 2001, lot 66, the consignor undesignated outside the name of the sale: ""Livres Précieux de la Bibliothèque d'un Amateur Européen."" Cohen-deRicci6 680-682.