Les proesses et vaillances du preux Hercules.

4to: [94] ff. (cut short at top, somewhat stained, worming in M3-R5 with loss of some letters).

18th-c. gold-tooled crimson morocco, covers with gilt flowery ornaments along gilt border, gilt spine on 5 raised bands, gilt sides, gilt inside dentelles, a.e.g., marbl. endpapers, silk marker. Good copy.

The only surviving copy of the 1508 ed. of Hercules (?). The text was compiled from Book 1 (6 final chapters) and Book 2 of Recueil des histoires troyennes (1464) by Raoul Le Fèvre, chaplain of Philip the Good. Large woodcut on title and 29 woodcuts in text. Full-page woodcut mark at the end. Printed in gothic type. Ref. Bechtel (Gothiques) L-83. - Moreau I:1508:144 = BP16 101174 (ref. to La Vallière sale 1783 - this copy?). - Pettegree FB 33531 ("no known surviving copy"). - Not in Adams, Fairfax Murray, Mortimer (Harvard), STC French (BL), WorldCat. Prov. Old bibliographic notes and catalogue cutting (M. Nijhoff, 1872) on front flyleaf. - "5145" i.e. lot 5145 in vol. III, Belles-lettres, pt. 2 (Amsterdam 1789) p. 92 of the auction cat. of Pietro Antonio Bolongaro Crevenna, 1736-1792, one of the great bibliophiles of the late 18th c. (ticket on front endpaper, provenance also on a loosely inserted bibliographical note). - [Georges Petit].