[Emblem books]
Jean-Jacques Boissard; Theodor de Bry (illustrator)
Theatrum vitae humanae.
Printed by Abraham Faber at Metz for Theodor de Bry at Frankfurt, 1596.
Price: $5,650
FIRST EDITION. Text in Latin.
Richly illustrated with an elaborate engraved title, portrait of the author and 60 splendid engraved emblems, all by Theodor de Bry (1528 - 1598).
"A rare and unusual emblem book" (Salloch).
The series of sixty splendidly executed engravings differ from most other emblem books by its dramatic and narrative quality. Each illustration tells a story, either biblical, mythological or secular, the scenic and architectural background being 16th-century German or Italian.
The magnificent engraved title page with Dance of Death motifs depicts a wedding scene, with Death seizing the bridegroom (in an oval cartouche on top), Death digging the grave for an old man who is looking into it (in an oval cartouche at bottom), Death striking an infant in its cradle (in the left panel of the border), and a merchant preparing to ship his goods but interrupted by Death (in the right panel of the border).
The book's title brings to mind Shakespeare's famous lines: "All the world's a stage" and "This wide and universal theatre presents / More woeful pageants than the scene / Wherein we play in" from As you like it.
As Sir Israel Gollancz notes the connection in his preface to Shakespeare's play, "Now 'this wide and universal theater' reminds one strongly of a famous book which Shakespeare may very well have known, viz., Boissard's Theatrum Vitae Humana (published at Metz, 1596), the opening chapter of which is embellished with a remarkable emblem representing a huge pageant of universal misery, headed with the lines: 'Vitae Humana est tanquam / Theatrum omnium miseriarum'; beneath the picture are words to the same effect: 'Vita hominis tanquam circus vel grande theatrum'."
"The layout of the Theatrum is similar to [Boissard's] 1593 Emblematum liber, although the prose commentary follows rather than precedes the pictura and the verse text, an arrangement which is in fact very common in emblem books. The inscriptio however has nothing of the motto: it is merely a title, and the chapters are arranged in a logical sequence, working from the creation of the world to the Last Judgment, such that an argument is developed throughout the book. [...] The 1593 Emblematum liber and the Theatrum are further linked by being the fruit of an association between Boissard and the engraver and printer, Theodore de Bry, originally from Liege, but operating in Frankfurt [...] In the case of the Theatrum, the relationship between the two men is clarified in Boissard's introduction to the reader (ẽ4v).
"De Bry, Boissard claims, had assembled the illustrations [...] and, together with his sons Theodore and Israel, engraved them; he had then asked Boissard to write an explanation: 'petivit a me, ut aliquid in eas scriberem, quod ad picturae elucidationem faceret, & ad lectoris utilitatem pertinere videretur (he asked me to write something about them which would serve as an elucidation of the picture and would seem to fit the reader's use). Boissard claims responsibility, in this cooperative venture, not only for arranging the chapters to correspond to the Ten Commandments, but also for adding further sections, presumably pictura as well as text, to complete the work [...]. Some of these can be identified, as the picturae for certain pagan gods are taken from Boissard's own drawings of antiquities (e.g. chapters 15, 16, 18). [...]
"It is dedicated, like the 1593 Emblematum liber, [...] to Catherine de Heu, the widow of Boissard's patron Claude Antoine de Clervant. Much of the dedicatory letter (ã2r-ẽ1v) is devoted to descriptions of the calamities besetting the world in general and France in particular. By this stage, Henri IV had converted to Catholicism, and in late 1595 even succeeded in gaining absolution from Pope Clement VIII. Consequently, the hopes of Protestants, who had been optimistic of an improvement in their situation, were dashed. Boissard's dedication to his patron also draws on some of the key passages on which Protestant doctrine is based, for instance Romans 5:3-5 and Romans 8:18 in which future salvation is precisely linked with the suffering endured for Christ's sake. [...]
"The purpose of the Theatrum, he continues, is to offer some consolation in the miserable state of mankind which is assailed by the 'crudelitate atrocissimi hostis Satanae, peccati, carnis, & mundi' (cruelty of the most terrible enemy Satan , sin, flesh and the world)." (Alison Adams, Webs of Allusion: French Protestant Emblem Books of the Sixteenth Century, p.157-8)
Jean-Jacques Boissard (1528 - 1602) was a French antiquary and Neo-Latin poet. He was born at Besançon and educated in Germany and at Leuven. Boissard led a colourful life, much of the time travelling widely. He spent considerable time in the entourage of Cardinal Caraffa in Rome where he pursued his interest in archaeology,and formed a collection of artefacts from Rome and its vicinity. After 1560, he was based in Metz (but continued to travel extensively), since he was charged with the education of two of the sons of the Calvinist leader, the Baron de Clervant. This included a period in the university town of Padua, where Boissard was at the time of the plague in 1576. Many people of his acquaintance died, and this, not surprisingly, seems to have affected him deeply. In 1583 he settled more pernanently in Metz (where this work was printed), and in 1587 he married Marie Aubry, the daughter of the printer with whom he had worked, Jean Aubry.
Quarto (leaves measure 220 mm x 152 mm); wide margins, perhaps untrimmed. Bound in attractive mid-20th-century half-morocco over marbled boards by "Hedberg of Stockholm" (stamp-signed at bottom of front pastedown), i.e. from Gustaf Hedberg's Swedish Royal bookbinder's workshop (founded ca. 1880 and closed in 1969).
Pagination: [16], 266 pp.
Signatures: ã4 ẽ4 A-Z4 Aa-Kk4 Ll2 [-Ll2 blank].
Collated and complete (except for the rear blank Ll2).
Illustrated with a historiated engraved title-page, engraved portrait of Boissard, and sixty large engraved illustrations in text, each followed by a 4-line verse (in Italic) and a lengthy prose commentary (in Roman letter).
Preliminaries include: dedication by Boissard to Catherine de Heu (leaves ã2r-ẽ1v; engraved portrait of Boissard accompanied with a Tetrastichum, by Pierre Joly (on ẽ2r); prefatory verses by Paulus Melissus Schedius (on ẽ2v); verses 'In Theatrum vitae humanae by Boissard (on ẽ3r-ẽ4r); Boissard's preface Ad Lectorem (on ẽ4v).
Colophon on Ll1v.
An additional (apparently unrelated) early engraved portrait of Wolfgang von Dalberg (1538 - 1601), the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz from 1582 to 1601, affixed to front pastedown.
Etched bookplate of Swedish collector Victor von Stedingk (dated 1944) on front fly-leaf.
Very Good antiquarian condition. Inner margin of the four leaves of the first preliminary quire and the last two leaves neatly and inconspicuously reinforced at gutter; final leaf also with a repaired small closed tear to bottom margin. Occasional light soiling and minor spotting. Generally a very pleasing, clean, bright, wide-margined (possibly untrimmed) example with excellent impression of the superb engravings.
Adams B-2344; Brunet I, 1067; Landwehr 167; Praz p.279; Adams, Rawles & Saunders, French Emblem Books, Vol I, F.115.
