Sir John Froissart's Renaissance History
With the Two Volumes of Illuminated Illustrations
A Fine Set Of The Complete Chronicles
His Great Work on England, France, Spain and Europe
Froissart, Sir John. Humphreys, H. N. CHRONICLES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES, From the Latter Part of the Reign of Edward II. to the Coronation of Henry IV. Translated from the French editions, with variations and additions from many celebrated Mss. by Thomas Johnes. To which are prefixed, A Life of the Author, An Essay on His Works, and A Criticism of His History; [with,] ILLUMINATED ILLUSTRATIONS OF FROISSART. Selected From the MS. in the Bibliotheque Royale, Paris, and From Other Sources [with] ILLUMINATED ILLUSTRATIONS OF FROISSART. Selected From the MS. in the British Museum. (London: William Smith, 1844) 4 volumes. A wonderful set including the first editions of the plate volumes. With a colour frontispiece and illuminated title-page to volume one and with a great profusion of fine illustrations from old wood-cuts throughout the text, the plate volumes with fine illuminated titlepages to each volume and a total of 72 magnificent colourplates, the plates are chromolithographs with beautiful hand-colouring and most are burnished with gold. Each page with descriptive text accompaning by by H.N. Humphreys. Large 8vo, full contemporary light brown calf, the spines with multi-gilt ruled and decorated raised bands, two compartments with red morocco labels lettered and ruled in gilt, all covers with double-gilt ruled borders and stippled edges and blind tooled turn-ins, endpapers and page-edges handsomely marbled. The plate volumes in three quarter contemporary brown morocco, gilt decorated. xlvii, 768; xiv, 733; the plate volumes each with 36 plates, each plate with an accompanying leaf of explanatory text and with a two page introduction to each volume. A fine, unusually handsome and clean set, the plate volumes also in excellent condition, with a small spot of expert and unobtrusive restoration to the foot of one volume.
THE MOST IMPORTANT 19TH CENTURY TRANSLATION OF THE GREAT RENAISSANCE HISTORY. The set includes a beautiful collection of hand-coloured chromolithographic plates reproduced from two of the greatest of known illuminated manuscripts of Froissart's CRONYCLES OF ENGLANDE, FRAUNCE, SPAYNE, PORTYNGALE, SCOTLANDE, BRETAYNE, FLAU[N]DERS: AND OTHER PLACES ADIOYNYNGE.
The first collection is from a manuscript of the First and Second book of Froissart in the British Museum. The manuscript came to the Museum from the Harleian Collection and appears to be the work of a Flemish artist, probably residing in Paris, and is believed to have been executed between 1460 and 1480.
The second collection is primarily from a magnificent manuscript of all four books at the Bibliotheque du Roi in Paris. This great work was one of the books executed for Louis of Bruges and was probably completed by 1470.
Together these volumes give us outstandingly well reproduced images from a time not long after that of Froissart himself. In these images we see the Middle Ages come to life in costume and finery---people at their tournaments or displaying their skills at horsemanship and at arms, the mechanisms of warfare and the ships which were sailed. All produced as near to the originals in the manuscripts as the technology of the time allowed, with no attempt at alteration or correction in the hope of bringing the full spirit of the Gothic artists to a wider audience.
"Froissart might be called the great interviewer of the Middle Ages. The newspaper correspondent of modern times has scarcely surpassed this medieval collector of intelligence. He traveled extensively in the various countries of Europe; he conversed with gentlemen of rank everywhere; and he had the remarkable knack of persuading those about him to divulge all he wanted to know. He learned the details of battles from both sides and from every point of view. He delighted in the minutest affairs of every cavalry skirmish, of the capture of every castle, and of every brave action and gallant deed. He lived from 1337 to about 1410, and wrote chiefly of contemporaneous events. The "Chronicles" are universally considered as the most vivid and faithful picture we have of events in the fourteenth century.... As a picture of the most favorable side of chivalry, the work has no equal" (Adams, Manual of Historical Literature, pp. 334-5).
Johnes's translation was the standard for most of the nineteenth century, preferred to Lord Berners' of 1525 (the first English translation of the text) for its modernity in diction and style and extensive additions and corrections. |
