Justin Croft Antiquarian Books - Rare and Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts

A scarce vernacular edition of Polydore Vergil’s second and most famous book, De inventoribus rerum (‘History of Inventions’). In this encyclopaedic work, Vergil addresses questions of origins, from the origin of the gods, man and languages to the origin of wine and liqueurs, marriage, magic, medicine, poetry, drama, geography and law. First published (in Latin) in Venice in 1499, it was first printed in France in 1528 (also in Latin). A French translation (probably by Jacques Regnault) appeared in 1544, followed by a new translation by François de Belleforest printed at Paris in 1576. Our small format Lyon edition of the same year is of de Belleforest’s text, without the preliminary material. An Italian by birth, Vergil spent much of his life in Britain, principally working as a Papal envoy at the court of Henry VIII. François de Belleforest (1530-1583) was a prolific translator and author, perhaps best known in the anglophone world as a source of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, through his French translation of the medieval Gesta Danorum found in his Histoires Tragiques published in 1570. The book contains the bookplate of Justin Godart, lawyer and mayor of Lyon, who was a leading figure in the French Resistance (heading the Comité du Front National clandestin de libération de la France Zone Sud) during the Second World War.