Beschreibung:

Fiaschi, Cesare.  Trattato dell’imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare caualli, diuiso in tre parti, con alcuni discorsi sopra la natura di caualli, con disegni di briglie, maneggi, & di caualieri a cauallo, & de ferri d’esso, di m. Cesare Fiaschi gentil huomo ferrarese. Bologna: Anselmo Giaccarelli, 1556
First edition of a best-selling treatise on how to bridle, train, and shoe horses, illustrated with woodcuts of bits, bridles, shoes, and manège patterns, the last accompanied by musical scores indicating the rhythm to which the exercises are to be performed (the author believed that horses have the capacity to synchronize their movements to a musical beat). Cesare Fiaschi (1523–1558), born into a distinguished Ferrarese patrician family, dedicates his work to the French king Henri II. An edition in French translation by François de Provane appeared in 1564 (reprinted 1567, 1578, 1579).
The gilt arms painted on the binding are those of the Gouffier family (D’or à trois jumelles de sable). At the time of publication, the Master of the King’s horse (Grand Écuyer) was Claude Gouffier (ca. 1501–1570). During a short career as a bibliophile, between about 1556 and 1569, Claude Gouffier commissioned some spectacular bindings, decorated with various combinations of his arms, the collar of the Ordre de Saint-Michel, a cypher (ΦX interlaced), motto (Hic Terminus Haeret), and badge of office as Grand Écuyer (Toulet, “Les collections de Claude Gouffier: Reliures de Claude Gouffier,” pp. 115–124). Fourteen volumes belonging to Claude Gouffier are listed by Jean Toulet: two cover books written in Italian, and the rest are in French; one is a manuscript on vellum depicting 368 different kinds of horse bits. The present binding was not commissioned by Claude Gouffier, but may have been ordered for presentation to him. Cesare Fiaschi’s elder brother, Alessandro (1516–1585), was resident ambassador of the d’Este at the French court, from 1559, and he may have been disposed to offer such a gift.
Alternatively, this volume may have belonged to another family member. The heraldic crown on the binding is that of a duke, while the crown on the bindings commissioned by Claude Gouffier is invariably that of a marquis. Although Claude’s father, Artus, had been granted the title duc de Roannais, it was not made hereditary before his death (1519), and only in November 1566 was Claude permitted to use the title 2° duc de Roannais. His son, Gilbert, became 3° duc de Roannais in 1570, and the latter’s son, Louis, became 4° duc de Roannais in 1582. Neither Gilbert nor Louis were Chevaliers de l’ordre de Saint-Michel, so the absence of the collar is appropriate for them, but most improper if this book was a present to Claude. Since it is difficult to date exactly the application of the painted arms, it could have belonged to either Gilbert or Louis. Inventories of their residence, the Château d’Orion, do not record a library, however one taken there after the death of Louis’s grand-daughter, Charlotte Gouffier, duchesse de La Feuillade, in 1683, records 353 volumes bound in vellum and 218 books bound in leathers of different colors (Crépin-Leblond, “Claude Gouffier et les livres”, pp. 108–114).Anthony Hobson observed that the corner-pieces on the binding appear to be the same as those used on a binding for Paolo Giordano Orsini ca 1556 (Abbey, no. 18).
Anthony Hobson observed that the corner-pieces on the binding appear to be the same as those used on a binding for Paolo Giordano Orsini ca 1556 (Abbey, no. 18).
4to (236 x 161 mm). Roman type, 35 lines plus headline. collation: A-Y4 χ2: 90 leaves. Giaccarelli’s device on title-page; each of the three sections introduced by a distinct emblematic full-page woodcut depicting hostlers, horse-shoeing, and riders, 40 full-page woodcuts showing bridles, 17 mostly full-page woodcuts depicting a horse and rider executing manège patterns (with musical notation), 24 text woodcuts of designs for horseshoes, historiated woodcut initials. (Occasional staining and worming, chiefly marginal, 5 leaves [A3–B3] more severely stained.)
binding: French brown polished calf (241 x 168 mm), ca. 1556, for Claude Gouffier, or another member of the family, large corner-pieces blocked in blind of intricate interlaced pattern, in center a large circular cartouche with large interlaced finial tools in silver, enclosing painted arms of Gouffier surmounted by ducal crown, spine with 5 full and 2 half bands, compartments with leaves and tendrils, gilt edges. (Extremities and spine restored, silver oxidized, a few small stains to lower cover.) Brown buckram folding-case, black morocco label.
provenance: Gouffier, family library, Château d’Oiron (armorial supralibros) — Lucien Désiré Prosper Graux (1878–1944; exlibris) — Mme Lucien Graux (née Léontine de Flavigny; d. 1964; Maurice Rheims & Jacqueline Vidal-Mégret, Bibliothèque du docteur Lucien-Graux, Paris, 26 January 1957, lot 38), purchased by — unidentified owner (FF 130,000) — Charles van der Elst (1904–1982; Ader Picard Tajan & Claude Guérin with Dominique Courvoisier, Monte Carlo, 13 May 1985, lot 88), purchased by — H. P. Kraus, New York (FF 55,000; Catalogue 174, [1986], item 52 ($12,500), Catalogue 179, [1988], item 40 ($14,500), & Catalogue 204, [1997], item 74 ($14,500). acquisition: Purchased from H. P. Kraus, 1997.
references: Edit16 18929; USTC 829412; Mortimer, Italian, no. 186; for this and related bindings, see: Toulet, “Les collections de Claude Gouffier: Reliures de Claude Gouffier,” & Crépin-Leblond, “Claude Gouffier et les livres, ” both in Les trésors du Grand Ecuyer: Claude Gouffier, collectionneur et mécène à la Renaissance (Paris, 1994), pp. 115–124 & pp. 108–114 (p. 108); A. Hobson, French and Italian Collectors and their Bindings Illustrated from Examples in the Library of J.R. Abbey (Oxford, 1953), no. 18.