Items
Details
Title
El gran vita Christi [manuscript].
Created/published
Paris : [s.n.], circa 1624-1626.
Description
185 leaves : engravings.
Associated name
Salazar, Ambrosio de, 1572 -1643, author.
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Place of creation/publication
France.
Item Details
Call number
FAST ACC 271247 (quarto)
Folger-specific note
From dealer's description: "Manuscript on paper, 8vo (133 x 85 mm). [185] leaves [ff. 6-9 blank], complete. Written in brown ink on rectos and versos in a large, legible cursive hand, possibly autograph, 10-12 lines per page (two quatrains plus verse numbers and some headings), catchwords on most versos, the 51 section headings written in a slightly larger upright script; illustrated with THIRTY-NINE ENGRAVED PLATES; the first, a portrait of Salazar by Michel Lasne, mounted on the verso of the title leaf, the remaining engravings by various engravers including Leonard Gaultier and Charles and Anna van Boeckel, many published by Jean Messager, most engravings highlighted in gold, several with additional coloring in silver and/or pale red (for Christ’s blood). A few small spots, occasional minor soiling, one plate with fore-edge cropped, overall fine. Bound in contemporary red velvet, evidence of two fore-edge ties, gilt edges, 13 blank leaves at front (the 13th conjugate with first text leaf) and 14 at end; joints and extremities rubbed, small knife slit in front cover. Provenance: Louis Allier de Hauteroche (1766-1827), 19th-century inscription on front endpaper, “Ce livre vient de mon oncle le chevalier Allier de Hauteroche”; Comte Maurice Allard du Chollet (1863-1937), note in pencil on front endpaper, “coll[ection] Allard du Chollet." From dealer's description: "Presentation manuscript of an unpublished and previously unknown devotional poem, illustrated with contemporary engravings, and inscribed and dedicated to the Cardinal De Richelieu. The manuscript was composed and possibly written out by the prolific poet, grammarian and professor of Spanish Ambrosio de Salazar, who served at the French court under two monarchs, benefiting from and contributing to the engagement for things Spanish following the marriage of Louis XIII to a Spanish princess. In his dedication to the Cardinal, Salazar states that this manuscript was one of three copies of his poem, presented to three different court dignitaries. The only surviving copy, the present manuscript was presented to the most powerful cleric of French history, and the single most powerful man of his time. Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu and Fronsac, made Cardinal in 1622, was an early proponent of a strong centralized monarchy, which he largely helped establish in France during his tenure as counselor of Marie de Medicis and chief minister to her son Louis XIII from 1624 until his own death in 1642, a year before the King’s. The de facto ruler of France, Richelieu was also an extremely wealthy patron of the arts, and the founder of the Académie française, still the most prestigious literary body of France. Ambrosio de Salazar, probably a native of Murcia, participated in the French religious wars on the side of the Ligue. The death of first one and then a second patron obliged him to take up teaching, a profession he initially exercised in Rouen. Moving to Paris, he became a successful maître of Spanish, rising to the highest circles, first as interpreter to Henri IV, then as secretary to Queen Anne of Austria and secretary-interpreter (and Spanish tutor) to her husband Louis XIII, a position won from his French rival César Oudin. Salazar wrote, translated and published a variety of mostly didactic Spanish texts, largely treatises of grammar and heraldry and works of religious devotion, but also including diverting tales and other short texts intended to help his students master the language by engaging their interest. His was a revolutionary approach, at a time when foreign languages were taught (or not) through rote memorization of rules of grammar, but after Salazar’s death he was largely forgotten." Ordered from: Nina Musinsky Rare Books, D9273, 2018-12-31, email quote. Purchase made possible by The Professor Emile V. Telle Acquisitions Fund.
Folger accession
271247