MONSTRELET (Enguerrand de). The First [-Second,... - Lot 70 - Ader

MONSTRELET (Enguerrand de). The First [-Second, -Third] volume of Enguerran de Monstrelet. Paris: Antoine Vérard, [late 1503]. - 3 parts in two volumes in-folio, 341 x 226: (10 ff.), ccci ff. mal foliotés cccii ; (8 ff.), ccii ff. mal foliotés cci ; (6 ff.), ff. cxxxiii-cclx. Granite-cut calf, double gilt fillet framed on covers, spine ribbed, speckled edges (18th century binding). Bechtel, M. 469. Second edition of the famous Chroniques d'Enguerrand by Monstrelet (ca. 1390-1453 ). These are the most important Burgundian chronicles, which the author wrote in particular with the aim of continuing those of Froissart which covered the years 1322 to 1400. According to Bechtel: "This meticulous continuator of Froissart is [...] irreplaceable for the history of France, Flanders and England in the first half of the fifteenth century, because he accumulated, in a certain disorder it is true, a quantity of information and even documents that without him we would not know. " Monstrelet is the author of only the first two books covering the years 1400 to 1444 . The third volume, covering the years 1445 to 1467, is anonymous and attributed to the chronicler Mathieu d'Escouchy (1420?-1483?). This second edition was printed in Gothic letters in two columns of 44 lines for Antoine Vérard after July 1503 and shows little difference from the first one which he himself had given at the beginning of that same year 1503 according to Bechtel. It bears the address "deuant la rue neusve nostre Dame a lymaige sainct Ieuã leuãgeliste". Each title includes a beautiful identical historiated letter. There is also the mark of Vérard on the last page of the second part and a large wood engraved on the x3 verso page of the first volume, representing the siege of a city. This engraving had already been used by Vérard in Josephe de la guerre judaïque in 1492.According to the descriptions given by Bechtel o