A handsome copy of this popular Renaissance study of and instructive manual for the use of classical Latin by the ambitious Cardinal, conspirator and English agent in Rome Adriano Castellesi (1461-1521), in contemporary French calf with sumptuous - if mysterious - gauffered edges.
While the vine leaf and grape pattern at the head and foot of the text block is a familiar gauffering motif, the connection of ‘chastel villain a l’abre d’or’ that is so prominently gauffered on the fore edge of the text block, with the present work, or its previous owners - a Johannes Mongmot, perhaps Montmort, who has inscribed their name to the upper pastedown and verso of the final leaf - is unclear. It may indicate eastern French, noble provenance; Châteauvillain is a small medieval town in eastern France, with a long line of seigneurie associated with it, and with a curious chivalric connection to the emblem of ‘l’arbre d’or’. According to an amateur history of the diocese, the town was once called Château-Gentil and had a golden tree, or ‘arbre d’or’ incorporated into its coat of arms, but the bad behaviour of an errant seigneur of the town, who kidnapped a princess and fled to Spain, occasioned the name change to Château-villain (Jacques Vignier, Décade historique du diocèse de Langres).
Possibly drafted in Bologna in 1507, Castellesi’s treatise on Ciceronian Latin - ‘the only sort that would do, insisted its author’ (ODNB) - was first published in 1515, and enjoyed immense popularity over the course of the sixteenth century, running to many editions. Castellesi himself was a shrewd political operator with strong ties to the bureaucratic and political intrigues of both the papal court in Rome, and the Tudor court in England in the decades either side of 1500.
“Castellesi began a career in the papal bureaucracy, and in 1488 was sent by Innocent VIII to intervene in the Scottish civil war. The killing of James III on 11 June forced his return to Rome, but not before he had met Henry VII, which probably helped to secure him the office of papal collector in England in 1490. It gave him enormous profits” (ODNB). Castellesi was awarded several prebendaries, privileges and bishoprics by successive Popes - including Hereford and Bath & Wells - and also represented the interests of Henry VII and Margaret Beaufort, Thomas Wolsey, and pressed for the marriage licence for Prince Henry Tudor and Katherine of Aragon, at the Vatican over the course of his career, before his decisive fall from grace and death - likely murdered by a servant - in 1521.
Most scandalously, in 1503 he “threw the famous banquet following which Alexander VI died, allegedly poisoned in a miscarried plot to murder Castellesi himself. The latter also fell violently ill and eventually his entire skin sloughed off, but he recovered sufficiently to be able to act in effect as cardinal protector of England during the brief reign of Pius III.”
Sporadic annotation to margins in early hand, MS notes in early hand to verso of final leaf, ‘Gramm. Hadr. Card’ below.
Provenance: 1. Possibly a member of the noble family of Châteauvillain, of the Haute-Marne region of eastern France. ‘Ex libris Johannis Mongmot’, ?Montmort, in contemporary hand to front paste down, ‘SUM JOHAN-’ in red banderole at head of title page, ‘sum Johannis Mongmot’ on verso of final leaf, cancelled by later hand, possibly that of the 2. Gautheret or Pautheret whose name is inscribed at the foot of the title page. 3. From the collection of bibliophile Kimball Brooker.
Thumbing to title page, otherwise in excellent condition.
VD16 C 1456; USTC 661452. See The Book Collector 2008, p.129 for discussion of the gauffering.
