Beschreibung:

ANEAU, Barthélemy (c. 1510-1561)]. Picta poesis. Ut pictura poesis erit . Lyons: Mathias Bonhomme, 1552.
ANEAU, Barthélemy (c. 1510-1561)]. Picta poesis. Ut pictura poesis erit . Lyons: Mathias Bonhomme, 1552. 8° (160 x 91mm). Title with Bonhomme's Perseus device. 106 cuts (including two repetitions) attributed to Pierre Eskrich the majority probably from metal plates. Head- and tailpieces, some with grotesques, historiated initials. (Title lightly washed.) Late 19th-century olive green morocco, covers with multiple rules in gilt and blind and gilt fleurons at inner corners, panelled spine directly lettered, gilt edges (faint rubbing and marks). Provenance : occasional underlining in ink --[H. Yates Thompson] -- S.A. Thompson Yates (ex libris). YATES THOMSON - BRIGHT COPY OF THE FIRST LATIN EDITION. The emblems, formerly attributed to Bernard Salomon are now believed to be principally the designs of Pierre Eskrich Some of the series had appeared earlier in Rouillé's edition of the works of Clément Marot (1550); the others appear here for the first time. The work includes a very early illustration of the game of tennis on p. 75. Spectators watch from the side-penthouse gallery, and the tennis 'net' -- no more than a rope across the court -- is included in one of its earliest depictions. The accompanying Latin poem, 'Magnus Labor Cassus' ('Great Labour in Vain'), is not entirely disapproving. Tennis benefits the different parts of the body through exercise, it stimulates happy emotions and dissipates anger, yet the hard work achieves nothing substantial. Baudrier X, p. 227; Brunet IV, 634; Fairfax Murray French 610; Landwehr Romanic 113; Mortime/Harvard French 25; Praz p. 256.