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BOCCACCIO, Giovanni (1313--1375)
[Decamerone. French. 1757]
Le decameron de Jean Boccace. Tome I.
Londres [i.e. Paris?]:, 1757.
1 vol. [ex 5] ; 19.6 cm. (8º)
I: viii, 320 p., engr. t.-pl., engr. port., add. engr. t.-pl, 3--24 [i.e. 22] pl. : engr. illus.

Volume I only of a five-volume set; the later volumes have title-pages dated 1757 but tail-pieces dated 1758--1761. The French text uses the translation of the sixteenth-century writer Antoine Jean Le Maçon who prepared it for Marguerite de Valois. An Italian edition with the same plates was issued in the same year. Most probably printed in Paris by Prault; see M. Parenti, Dizionario dei luoghi di stampa falsi, inventati o supposti in opere di autori e traduttori italiani (Florence 1951, reprinted 1996), p. 117. The complete work has been called one of the most exquisite illustrated French publications of the time; most of the plates in the five volumes and all the culs-de-lampe are the work of Gravelot, and the remaining plates are after Eisen, Cochin and Boucher. The plates are numbered 1--24, with an unnumbered additional title-plate to the plates, reading 'Estampes Galantes Des Contes Du Boccace'. ESTC t143783; Cohen-De Ricci 160--161; Ray 39--41.

Copy Notes Imperfect; wanting vols II--V.

Binding C18th marbled calf, French fillet borders, gilt-tooled spine with pineapple motif, black and olive morocco spine-labels, lettered 'Contes De Boccace Tom I', marbled endpapers, gilt edges.

Reference Number 1343

Additional Names Villani, Filippo di Matteo; Le Maçon, Antoine Jean; Eisen, Charles Dominique Joseph (1720--1778); Boucher, François (1703--1770); Cochin, Charles-Nicholas, the younger (1715--1790); Gravelot, Hubert François (1699--1773)


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