Le premier livre de l’histoire & ancienne cronique de Gerard d’Euphrate, Duc de Bourgongne: traittant, pour la plus part, son origine, jeunesse, amours, et chevalereux faitz d’armes: avec rencontres, et avantures merueilleuses, de plusieurs Chevaliers, et grans Seigneurs de son temps: mis de nouveau en nostre vulgaire Françoys [no more publ.].

Folio: [6]-cxxxvii (=137) ff. (lacking final blank; toned, some minor spotting).

19th-c. richly gold-tooled dark blue morocco, covers with gilt ruled rectangular frames and large gilt corner-pieces, richly gilt spine on 5 raised bands, gilt sides, a.e.g., gilt inside dentelles, marbled endpapers, green silk marker (sl. rubbed). Very good copy.

First ed. of this chivalric "romance". The text is described in the preface as a translation from a Walloon poet. 46 woodcuts by Denys Janot, incl. repeats, earlier used in Janot’s 1540 Amadis de Gaula. "Of particular interest is the use of black figures with white details, in the third block, for the Ethiopians at the throne of the king of the underworld" (Mortimer).
Ref. BP16 113579. - Mortimer (Harvard French) 246. - Pettegree FB 19088. - STC French (BL) 201. - Not in Adams, Fairfax Murray, Rothschild.
Prov. Y[emeniz], i.e. the famous French bibliophile of Ottoman descent Nicolas Yemeniz (1781-1871) (collector’s ticket). - [William] Harry Vane Milbank (1848-1892, armorial bookpl. and stamp dated "1878"). - James Hartmann, 19th-c. English collector of French literature (library sold Paris 1887, leather bookpl.). - [Georges Petit].