In an article devoted to literary life during the reign of Francis I, Paul J. Smith1 emphasised the prestige enjoyed by the Aesopic fable in 16th-century France, even by writers such as François Rabelais, Clément Marot and Jean Thenaud, who was particularly close to the young monarch and his mother, Louise of Savoy.2 As for the fabulists themselves, Gianni Mombelloâs pioneering research3 has shown that the success of the apologue was uninterrupted from the Middle Ages until La Fontaine: between 1486 and 1599, sixteen collections had been identified, to which can now be added a small prose anthology published in 1534 by François Juste, probably edited by Rabelais and recently studied by Romain Menini and Olivier Pédeflous.4
Among the seven prose translations of Aesopian apologues made during the sixteenth century is a collection of one hundred and sixteen fables that has come to be called Anonyme de 1547.5 Indeed, the name of the translator has so far resisted any attempt at identification; nevertheless, his work had been remarkable and Barbara Tiemann, who first drew attention to this collection, did not hesitate to compare it to the one that Amyot produced some decades later for Plutarch.6 The fact that in the following century several writers claimed authorship of this collection is a concrete testimony to the quality of this French translation.7
In fact, this work can be considered a real best seller, for to the fifteen editions dated before 1599 listed by Gianni Mombello eight others can now be added,8 so that we arrive at the considerable number of twenty-three in a little over fifty years. The geographical distribution was just as remarkable: our collection circulated not only in Paris and Lyon, but also in Poitiers, Antwerp and Geneva, with richly illustrated editions. La Fontaine himself knew this collection, from which he often drew inspiration for his own fables.
In this chapter, I will focus on the different series of illustrations that adorn most of the editions found so far, in order to explore the characteristics and functioning of text-image device within the mise en page, particularly interesting at a time when generic similarities are stressed thanks to layout; the analysis of the different series of illustrations adorning our fablier during the 16th century will then allow to reflect on the influence that the choice of the subject for engravings and the way it is represented in it have on the interpretation of the textual component; the chronology of the first known editions of the Anonyme de 1547 will be also discussed on the basis of illustrations.
1 Illustration and mise en page in the editio princeps: between Tradition and Innovation
According to the copies that have come down to us, the editio princeps of our fable collection was published in Paris by Estienne Groulleau; the anonymous fablier, entitled La vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien, traduites de nouveau en français selon la verité grecque9 is adorned with woodcuts. Regina Timm affirmed that when books of fables contain illustrations, these ones are usually present for all the apologues included in the collection, because of the independence of each story from the others;10 even if this is not the case in our fablier, as only 80% of apologues are illustrated, it is true that unlike the animal epic, the apologues feature animals that do not have a definite identity and are never the same individuals from one fable to the other, so that a lion, after having been depicted as envious and ill can reappear in all its vigour, or it may embody both the cruellest contempt for weak animals and benevolent magnanimity.11 The aesthetic concern to give a kind of rhythm to the structure of collections, dominated by variatio in the succession of motifs, is another important aspect to be taken into account in this concern for iconographic completeness.12
The illustrations in 1547 edition are not original: the printer used the series created for the edition of Gilles Corrozetâs fables in verse published in 1542 by Denis Janot, with whom he had a partnership.13 Janot, who had made illustrated books one of the distinctive features of his atelier, often worked in collaboration with Corrozet for the edition of the latterâs works as a part of a project destined to acclimate the literary genre of emblem in France. Since some of the fables included in the anonymous collection of 1547 do not appear in Corrozetâs collection, the principle of univocal correspondence between engravings and text is not always respected; for example, this is the case of the apologue n. 63, entitled LâArbre et le Roseau, whose illustration is also used for fable n. 99, Le Sapin et le Buisson.14 Moreover, from fable n. 32 onwards some of the fables without a match in the verse fablier have no engravings,15 while others have âoriginalâ illustrations, whose style is very similar to the others and for which I have not been able to find models in other previous French fable collections. Nevertheless, the two fabliers have more than 75% of the engravings in common. A detail to be taken into account for our analysis is that the layout of Corrozetâs apologues in verse is presented as indispensable to the generation of meaning in combination with two other elements, all interacting closely, which theoretically implies a particular attention in the iconographic choices; indeed, as Barbara Tiemann pointed out,16 the author conceived an original device comprising, on the left hand page, a tripartite set of motto (inscriptio, in this case the title), pictura (image) and subscriptio (epigram summarizing the moralization), and on the right-hand page, the narrative itself. The architectural framing is also a remarkable novelty, which contributes to assigning a fixed place to the image on the page, just after the title [Fig. 2.1]; an antecedent for this structuring of the fable can be considered to be Pierre Salaâs collection, but it remained manuscript and circulated in a very restricted court circle.17 The emblematic device is not reproduced in our prose fablier, whose layout is more similar to that of the most widespread fable books in French at the time, namely the Subtilles fables dâEsope, ou Esopet en françois, translated by Julien Macho from the collection composed in Germany by Heinrich Steinhöwel.18 In the editio princeps of both collections, the title of each fable is always followed by an illustration and the text of the fable, reproduced in long lines [Figs. 2.2â2.3];19 moreover, in both the Anonyme and the Macho collections, the different components of the apologue may occupy several pages, and may be visually separated, so that the interpretation of the meaning is made rather by juxtaposed elements. The illustration thus has essentially the function of a striking up, announcing the subject of the story and inviting reading through the aesthetic pleasure it arouses, without entering into a structure involving a reciprocal reading modality with the text.20 But beyond these points in common with the editions of Machoâs translation, the anonymous collection of 1547 introduces significant innovations that show the will to put the progress of typographical art at the service of a project that aims to combine tradition and innovation, both from the point of view of page layout and for textual aspects.
Rooster and Gemstone, in Gilles Corrozet, Les fables du tresancien Esope (Paris, Denis Janot: 1542) fol. A viiivâB ir. Bibliothèque nationale de France, RES-YB-1003
Raven and Fox, in La Vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Paris, Estienne Groulleau: 1547) fol. H iiivâiiiir. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, A.gr.b.187
Raven and Fox, in Julien Macho, Subtilles fables de Esope (Lyon, Matthias Huss â Johann Schabeler: 1484) fol. d viiir. Bibliothèque nationale de France, RES-YB-98
The innovations in the mise en page are of three different kinds. Firstly, the typographical density that characterises the Steinhöwel-Macho collection gives way to a more airy layout, so the image, in the incunabulum only partially framed in order to create the illusion of a sky dilating a little the space of the page,21 is now well delimited. The effect of this framing is to give the engraving greater autonomy and thus to emphasise its aesthetic function, which is also enhanced by the quality of the illustration; scholars have highlighted the talent of the engraver who had worked to illustrate Corrozetâs fables, particularly underlining the fineness of the lines, the search for harmony in the representation of the motifs, the increased attention to details of the landscape, with the introduction of architectural elements that are adventitious, but coherent with the story.22
The presence of a heading that clearly distinguishes the moralizing sentence from the narrative is the second novelty in the typographical layout of the anonymous collection compared with the Steinhöwel-Macho fablier; in fact, the latter presented a framing moral23 forming a whole with the narrative and consisting of a promythium immediately following the image and an epimythium after the narration of the action; the fable of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse will serve to exemplify the characteristics of the two structures:
In Machoâs fable, the promythium allows the reader to be introduced succinctly to the moral interpretation, just as the engraving announces the content of the narrative through the representation of a specific moment in the action, while the epimythium reformulates and amplifies the didactic message by way of conclusion; according to Nora Viet, this structure is not without affinities with that of the Latin books of fables with moral glosses.26 On the other hand, in the Anonyme de 1547 the moralization is presented as the final stage of an interpretative journey that uses the iconographic component and the narrative material as the indispensable instruments of a progressive pedagogical process based on seduction. It is known that the two models of apologue, with framing or postposed morality, were already used in medieval tradition respectively for apologues in prose and in verse.27 By applying to prose fables the structure of the postposed morality typical of verse collections, and by visually detaching the moralization from the body of the narrative, our anonymous translator thus presented his work as a novelty in the context of printed French fable books, even compared with the little collection of fables on frogs published in 1534 at the end of the Fantastiques batailles des grands Roys Rodilardus et Croacus, a French rewriting of pseudo-Homer Batrachomyomachia; in fact, here the moral message is entrusted to an aphoristic, non-isolated sentence concluding the fable. The pattern used in the Anonyme de 1547 actually has its model in the Latin source, namely the humanist fable collection known as Aesopus Dorpii,28 but thanks to the introduction of images, evoking the ut pictura poesis principle, the layout of the French collection profoundly modifies the horizon of expectation of the source text.
The third novelty in the layout is strictly linked to the choice of the Dorpius collection as a source for the French translation. Indeed, the use of roman fonts for the editio princeps, the presence of the Vita Aesopi and a title combining capital letters of various dimensions as well as roman fonts and italics [Fig. 2.4] contributed to linking the Anonyme de 1547 to the scholarly tradition of the apologue, inaugurated in Italy by Aldus Manutius with his edition of the life and fables of Aesop published in 150529 and continued in Northern Europe by Martin van Dorp, Guilielmus Goudanus (Willem Hermans of Gouda) and Adrianus Barlandus (Adriaan Aelius van Baerlandt). These scholars brought together several collections of fables composed by Italian Humanists such as Lorenzo Valla, Rinuccio dâArezzo and Manutius himself, as well as their own Latin texts. Certainly, practical reasons could come into play in the typographical choices, such as the early diffusion of roman fonts among Parisian publishers or the characteristics of the printerâs workshop; in any case, the typeface used for the first Parisian edition of the anonymous fable collection helped to present it as a work worthy of competing with scholarly translations of classical texts, despite the presence of illustrations that placed the collection more in the realm of delectable reading. The font clearly distinguishes this edition from those in Gothic which still transmitted the Steinhöwel-Machoâs Aesop.
Title page La Vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Paris, Estienne Groulleau: 1547) Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, A.gr.b.187
The engravings, the dispositio and the typographical choices thus prove that the Anonyme de 1547 remains in balance between the will to continue a tradition inherited from the incunabula era, and the ambition to renew the French Aesopic fable in prose; the delectatio aroused by engravings and the utilitas underlined through the independent moral are harmonized in a well-balanced and very modern edition. This doesnât apply to all subsequent editions of our collection, starting from the first Lyonese edition, printed in Gothic fonts (Lyon, François and Claude Marchant: 1547),30 but overall the aspect of the editio princeps remains typical of this prose fablier.
2 One Fable, Different Engravings: Image and Meaning
The editions of our anonymous fable book that have been found so far and that I have been able to consult allow to identify six different series of engravings used to illustrate the text:
the illustrations used in the editio princeps (n. 131 ) which, as has been said, were originally part of Corrozetâs emblematic fables (Paris: 1542) [Fig. 2.5];
Figure 2.5 Wolf and Lamb, in La Vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Paris, Estienne Groulleau: 1547) fol. G iiir. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, A.gr.b.187 and Gilles Corrozet, Fables du tres ancien Esope (Paris, Denis Janot: 1542) fol. Biv. Bibliothèque nationale de France, RES-YB-1003
copies of the engravings made by Bernard Salomon for the 1547 Lyonese edition of Corrozetâs fables published by Jean I de Tournes and Guillaume Gazeau;32 these woodcuts had no architectural framework. This series is found in the edition published in Lyon by Balthazar Arnoullet in 1550 (n. 4) as well as in the most of the successive illustrated editions of our fablier [Fig
s. 2.6â2.7];Figure 2.6 Wolf and Lamb, in La vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Lyon, Balthazar Arnoullet: 1550) 86. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 8 ° W A.gr.78
Figure 2.7 Dog and His Shadow, in La vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Lyon, Balthazar Arnoullet: 1550) 80. Munich, University Library, 8 ° W A.gr.78
engravings from the edition Antwerp, Ameet Tavernier pour Jean Bellère, 1561, using the woodcuts executed for fables of Glaude Luython, Antwerp, Grégoire de Bonte, 154833 [Fig. 2.8];
Figure 2.8 Fox and Stork, in La Vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Antwerp, Ameet Tavernier for Jean Bellère: 1561) fol. e iiir. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, A: 154.10 Eth.
engravings of the edition Paris, Nicolas Bonfons, 1580, originally made for the Steinhöwel-Macho edition published firstly in Paris by the Veuve Trepperel and Jehan Janot (Esopet en françoys, 1515â1519).34 These illustrations are limited in number, sometimes not very coherent with the text [Fig. 2.9];
Figure 2.9 Cock and the Jewel, in Les Fables et la vie dâEsope Phrygien (Paris, Nicolas Bonfons: [1580]) fol. 22r. Mannheim, Universitätsbibliothek, Sch 074/225
plates made by Peeter van der Borcht for the edition Antwerp, Plantin-Mourendorf, 159235 and reproduced also in the 1593 edition, also inspired by Bernard Salomonâs woodcuts;
engravings of the edition Geneva, Jean II de Tournes, 1598, originally made for the Latin fables of Joachim Camerarius (Fabulae plures quingentis et aliae quaedam narrationes cum historia vitae fortunaeque aesopi composita [Lyon, Jean II de Tournes: 1571]),36 partially inspired by Bernard Salomonâs woodcuts.
As Regine Timm has shown,37 the concept of image is embedded in the very definition of the fable, whose text plays on a metaphorical representation of human society to convey a lesson in an appealing form. Thus when it is present, the illustration gives a glimpse of the picturesque animal world described verbally by the narrative; however, the scene represented in images is only a portion of the action described in the text, like a freeze-frame focusing the attention to some specific detail.38
The dynamism of the narrative and the static nature of the image thus contribute in different and complementary ways to the interpretative process of the hidden meaning of the fable. The choice of the moment of the action to be represented in the image, the organisation of the space, the attitude of the protagonists are therefore elements that illustrators must consider carefully. However, the wish of illustrators to exploit the possibilities offered by the text in a relevant and original way by making the engraverâs work recognisable must take into account the need to respect an established tradition; the requirement to make the Aesopic motifs identifiable therefore justifies the frequent recourse to iconographic programmes produced by their predecessors. It is no doubt for this reason that the illustrations in the books of fables all give an impression of resemblance, parallel to that given by the texts.
The example of The Wolf and the Lamb fable allows to appreciate the way in which in our fablier, the choice of subject and the structure of the image contribute to the production of the meaning of the apologue. In the engraving of the editio princeps (series n. 1, Fig. 2.5) and in the illustration by Van der Borcht (series n. 4,), the image represents the initial moment of the fable when the two animals quench their thirst, one upstream, the other downstream:
Le Loup beuvant à la source de la fontaine, vid un Agneau loing de soy, lequel aussi beuvoit au bas du ruisseau. Il acourut, et tansoit aigrement le pauvret de ce quâil troubloit son eau. LâAgneau trembloit, et prioit le Loup, quâil pardonnast au pauvre innocent, luy remonstrant quâen tant quâil beuvoit bien loing au dessouz de luy, il ne luy pouvoit troubler son eau, et (qui plus est) il nâen avoit point de volunté seulement. Le Loup au contraire luy crye: âTu parles en vain, meschant, tu me fais tousjours empeschement. Ton pere, mere et toute ta race me sont ennemys, et contraires de toute leur puissance. Tu en seras aujourdâhuy punyâ.39
The illustrators have therefore chosen to show the two protagonists in a tranquil attitude, instead of staging the moment when the wolf devours the lamb; this option fits particularly well with the moralization present in the Anonymous of 1547, which invites to govern aggressiveness, like in the Latin source:
Il est dit par un vieil proverbe: si tu veux batre le chien, facilement tu trouveras un baston. Si le riche a volunté de nuyre, facilement il trouvera ocasion de nuyre. Assez a peché qui nâa peu resister.40
Vetus dictum est, ut canem caedas facile inveniri baculum. Potes si libet nocere, facile capit nocendi causam: satis peccavit, qui resistere non potuit.41
The didactic component and the iconographic material thus converge here to draw a call for moderation from a narrative centred on physical superiority violence. It should be noted in passing that in series n. 1, the reuse of a series of illustrations designed for another collection of fables is not always without consequences; indeed, some of the details here are not perfectly adapted to the Anonyme de 1547 text. The author translated the fable by Goudanus, II (âLupus ad caput fontis bibens, videt agnus procul infra bibentem. Accurrit, agnus increpitat [â¦]â), whereas Corrozet had followed the tradition of Romulus Ordinarius, like J. Macho (âLupus et agnus ad rivum e diverso veneruntâ):42
Comme ainsi soit que lâaignel et le loup avoyent soif, lesquelz allerent boire en ung ruisseau.44
So the two animals drink from a stream in Corrozet, as shown in the image, but from a spring in the Anonymous translation (âLe Loup beuvant à la source de la fontaine [â¦]â). On the other hand, in series n. 2 the engraving copied on Bernard Salomonâs woodcut depicts the wolf in profile, as in Steinhowel-Macho Ulm edition, in a more aggressive attitude (see Fig. 2.6); in fact, the âfreeze-frameâ concerns the dialogue between the two animals leading to the brutal conclusion. This staging of the verbal exchange has the effect of accentuating the humanisation of the beasts, so emphasizing the fictional mechanism that is the basis of any animal fable; as for the didactic content, this image fits the best those moralizations inviting not to slander others, as in Romulus Ordinarius (âHec in illis dicta est fabula qui hominibus calumnianturâ) and therefore, the coherence with the didactic teaching of Anonyme de 1547 is not so strict.
On the other hand, in some cases series n. 2 improves the coherence between the textual and graphic components of our fablier compared to series n. 1. This is the case of the fable of the Frogs Asking for a King: the bird sent by Jupiter in the end is a raptor in series n. 1 [Fig. 2.10], whereas the text mentions a stork in both Corrozet and the Anonyme de 1547:
Frogs Asking for a King, in La Vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Paris, Estienne Groulleau: 1547) fol. I ir. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, A.gr.b.187
[Les grenouilles] importunent de rechef Jupiter, et le prient quâil leur donne un autre roy, qui soit vaillant. Jupiter leur donne la Cicoigne. Ce nouveau roy vaillamment se pourmenant par le marest, autant de grenouilles quâil rencontre en son chemin, autant il en devore.46
Mediaeval French translators have often hesitated when faced with the word hydrum used in Romulus Ordinarius (II, 1), but the source of Corrozet and the Anonymous leaves no doubt as for the kind of bird sent by the god (âDat Jupiter Ciconiaâ, Goudanus, Aesopi fabulae n. 17). In the case of Corrozet, the fact that he composed emblematized apologues implies that all the elements of the image are important in the decoding process required to the reader in order to catch the meaning; therefore, an incongruity of this kind was likely to be significant. Salomonâs rectification re-establishes the text-image equivalence and is hence very appropriate [Fig. 2.11]. It was this more precise model that Pieter van der Borcht followed some fifty years later, proving that the iconographic tradition has an important weight in fable illustration.
Frogs Asking for a King, in La vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Lyon, Balthazar Arnoullet: 1550) 108. Munich, University Library, 8 ° W.A.gr.78
One last illustration will concern the chronology of the Anonyme de 1547 edition. In the engraving associated with the fable of the dog and its shadow, series n. 1 depicts the animal crossing the river on a plank, with a piece of meat in its mouth; this fits with Corrozetâs initial verses [Fig. 2.12]:
Dog and His Shadow, in La Vie et fables dâEsope Phrygien (Paris, Estienne Groulleau: 1547) fol. G vr. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, A.gr.b.187
However, this image is not appropriate to the Anonymous text, which describes the dog swimming to the other shore, like the Latin source:
Le chien nageant outre la riviere portoit en sa gueule une piece de chair, lâombre luisoit en lâeau à la lueur du soleil.48
Canis tranans fluvium, rictu vehebat carnem. Splendente sole, ita ut fit, umbra carnis lucebat in aquis.49
When Bernard Salomon created his woodcut for Corrozetâs fable book, he depicted the dog swimming, even so this no longer corresponded to the text it was supposed to illustrate, like in the Anonyme de 1547 Lyonese edition of 1550 [Fig. 2.7]; could we then assume that Salomonâs series of engravings was originally intended to adorn the lost Lyons edition of the Anonyme de 1547 published by Marchand? In other words, could we formulate the hypothesis that Jean de Tournes and Guillaume Gazeau, who edited Corrozetâs fablier in 1547, might have thought of publishing two innovative and coherent fable collections which seem to function as a duo, and of using the same woodcuts for both these fable books? Indeed, they are complementary in their concern to renew a successful genre: Corrozetâs lively adaptation of the Aesopus Dorpii hybridizes the fable with the emblem and experiments with the epidictic power of versification ornaments, while the philological translation of the same source, produced âselon la verité Graecqueâ, bets on the elegance of unadorned prose.50
3 Conclusion
This analysis of the anonymous prose fablier of 1547, which appeared only a few years after Gilles Corrozetâs emblematised verse collection, has made it possible to highlight the role that the Aesopic fable played in the experiments that men of letters and printers were carrying out at the time to renew the formal structure of the apologue, both through choices affecting the textual material and through a layout that alluded to other types of text.
If the fablier in verse produced in 1542 brought the fable closer to the emblem and used verse to produce a genuine literary work while exploiting the epidictic potential of verse, the prose collection revived the Latin humanist tradition and brought the apologue closer to the scholarly sphere in order to better contribute to the illustration of the French language.
But the illustration, which the two books of fables have in common, is the element that immediately makes it possible to grasp the coherence of the two projects, complementary in their specificity. By both exploiting the possibilities offered by the principle of ut pictura poesis, the two translators manage in different ways and for partly different purposes the effects that the articulation of the text with its illustration and layout produces on the reader. The extra information that the engravings provide in the interpretative process reinforces the textual strategy while at the same time making the seductive power of the fable visible.
Table of Anonyme de 1547 editions, 16th century
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Menini R. â Pédeflous O., ââAesope le Françoisâ. Autour de dix-sept fables éditées par Rabelaisâ, in Calas F. â Viet N. (eds.), Séductions de la fable dâÃsope à La Fontaine (Paris: 2014) 193â221. A further copy of this work is preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque de lâÃcole nationale des Beaux-Arts, Masson 472.
La Vie et les fables dâEsope phrygien, traduites de nouveau en Françoys selon la verité Graecque. Avecqâ les hystoires (Paris, Estienne Groulleau: 1547), USTC 27013. The number of fables varies from one edition to another; for details, see Mombello, Le Raccolte 53â81.
Tiemann B., Fabel und Emblem. Gilles Corrozet und die französische Renaissance-Fabel (Munich: 1974) 182â198.
Mombello G., âUn problème de propriété littéraire: Jean Baudoin, Pierre III de Boissat et lâAnonyme de 1547â, Studi Francesi 70 (1980) 14â34.
See annexed table.
The unique copy of this edition is preserved in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek A.gr.b.187.
Timm R., Das illustrierte Fabelbuch Band 1. Spiegel kultureller Wandlungen (Frankfurt a.M. â Berlin: 1998) 6â7.
For example in Lion and Fox, G201 (Dicke G. â Grubmüller K.), Die Fabeln des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit: ein Katalog der deutschen Versionen und ihrer lateinischen Entsprechungen (Munich: 1987), Lion, Bear and Fox, G379; Lion and Mouse, G391.
Timm, Das illustrierte Fabelbuch 6.
Groulleau will marry Janotâs wife in 1546, after the death of his ancient partner (Renouard Ph., Répertoire des imprimeurs, fondeurs de caractères et correcteurs dâimprimerie depuis lâintroduction de lâimprimerie à Paris (1470) jusquâà la fin du seizième siècle (Paris: 1965) 315). On Denis Janot see Rawles S., Denis Janot (fl. 1529â1544), Parisian printer and bookseller (Leiden â Boston: 2018).
Other examples: fables n. 26, n. 58 and n. 103 or n. 14 and 94.
Fables n. 32, 56â57, 60, 66, 67, 75â76, 80, 82, 85, 87â89, 93, 95, 97, 100â102, 104, 106â107, 115â116.
Tiemann, Fabel und Emblem 106â124.
Pierre Salaâs fables are preserved in manuscripts London, British Library, Additional 59677 and New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 422. See Giraud Y., âUn album de fables au temps de François Ierâ, Le fablier 13 (2001) 69â78.
Recueil général des Isopets. Tome troisième: LââEsopeâ de Julien Macho, ed. P. Ruelle (Paris: 1982). Woodcuts of the editio princeps were modelled on those in the Latin-German editions by Günther Zainer, Augsburg; see LââEsopeâ de Julien Macho XIV; for the list of incunabula preserving Machoâs translation XâXVIII.
On the contrary, the Apologues et fables de Laurens Valle by Guillaume Tardif were printed on two columns (Tardif Guillaume, Les Apologues et fables de Laurens Valle (Paris, pour Antoine Vérard: [1492â1493]), GW 345, ISTC ia00109000; digital copy on Gallica).
Réach-Ngô A., âLe même Ãsope sous un habit différent. Dispositifs de signification et appariements génériques des Fables sous lâAncien Régimeâ, in Calas F. â Viet N. (eds.), Séductions de la fable dâÃsope à La Fontaine (Paris: 2014) 323â362, here 329.
Timm, Das illustrierte Fabelbuch 117â118.
Ibid. 14, 48, 59, 67â70, 138â139.
Viet N., âLe fablier sous presse: renouveau du genre ésopique à lâère incunableâ, in Calas F. â Viet N. (eds.), Séductions de la fable dâÃsope à La Fontaine (Paris: 2014) 153â175.
Ruelle, LââEsopeâ de Julien Macho 133 (I, 12). Italics mine.
Anonyme 1547, fab. 10 fol. Hir.
Viet, âLe fablier sous presseâ 166.
Ibid. 155; the reference concerns the Anonymus Neveleti in verse and the Romulus Ordinarius in prose, both having as a source a rewriting of Phaedrusâ fables.
Thoen P., âAesopus Dorpii: Essai sur lâÃsope latin des temps modernesâ, Humanistica Lovaniensia 19 (1970) 241â316; Id., âLes grands recueils ésopiques latins des XVe et XVIe siècles et leur importance pour les littératures des temps modernesâ, in IJsewijn J. â Kessler E. (eds.), Acta Conventus neo-latini Lovaniensis (Leuven â Munich: 1973) 659â679; González González E., «â Martinus Dorpius and Hadrianus Barlandus editors of Aesop (1509â1513)â », Humanistica Lovaniensia 47 (1998) 28â41.
Manutius Aldus, Vita et fabellae Aesopi cum interpretatione latina (Venice, Aldus Manutius: 1505) (Edit16 â Censimento delle edizioni italiane del XVI secolo, https://edit16.iccu.sbn.it/web/edit-16, CNCE 334); see Berthon G. â Kemp W., âLe renouveau de la typographie lyonnaise, romaine et italique, pendant les années 1540â, in Bénévent Chr. â Diu I. â Lastraioli Ch. (eds.), Gens du livre et gens de lettres au XVIe siècle (Turnhout: 2014) 341â357.
USTC 95185; Bechtel G., Catalogue des gothiques français: 1476â1560 (Paris: 2010) E-183.
See annexed table.
Today, seven matrices of these engravings are preserved in the Museum of Art and History in Geneva, where the son of Jean I de Tournes took refuge from persecution during the War of Religion. On Bernard Salomon, see Sharratt P., Bernard Salomon, illustrateur lyonnais (Geneva: 2005).
Amatuzzi A., âLe fablier de Glaude Luython, un manuel dâenseignement du français aux Pays-Bas au XVIe siècle: édition critiqueâ, La parola del Testo 10 (2006) 153â195.
Notice BnF FRBNF30406105.
This edition (USTC 66123, copies in Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus, A 1121 and Berkeley, University Library, Bancroft t PA3855 F7 1592 UCB), is not mentioned in the catalogue Mielke H. â Mielke U., New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450â1700. Peeter van der Borcht, Book Illustrations. Part V (Rotterdam â Amsterdam: 2007).
Küster C., Illustrierte Aesop-Ausgaben des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (Bamberg: 19870) n. 65, 200â201.
Timm R. Das illustrierte Fabelbuch 3.
Multiple scenes, like the one illustrating the fable of Wolf and Crane are rare.
Anonyme 1547, fab. 2, fol. Giiir.
Ibid., fol. Giiiv. Italics mine.
Goudanus, Aesopi fabulae n. 2.
Romulus Ordinarius I, n. 2.
Gilles Corrozet, Fables du Tres Ancien Esope, 1542, fab. 2, fol. Biir.
Julien Macho, Subtilles fables, ed. Ruelle 78.
Ibid., fab. 17, fol. Dir.
Anonyme 1547, fab. 19, fol. Iir.
Gilles Corrozet, Fables du Tres Ancien Esope, 1542, fab. 4, fol. Biiiir.
Anonyme 1547, fab. 5, fol. Gvr.
Goudanus, Aesopi fabulae n. 4.
The phrase âselon la verité graecqueâ, on the title page of many editions, is modelled on the expression âde graecanica veritateâ coined by St. Jerome and in the 16th century referred to the humanist attitude towards translation. See Mombello, Le Raccolte 57.