LE FÉRON, Jean. ~ De la primitive Institution des roys, heraulds, & poursuivans d’armes, composé par Maistre Iehan le Feron, advocat en la cour de Parlement à Paris. Paris: Maurice Ménier, [14 December] 1555.
4to (222 × 165 mm), ff. 47, [1] with woodcut device to title and full-page armorials to title verso and final leaf, woodcut headpiece with initial ‘MM’ and large initial. Some marginal waterstaining towards the opening, very small wormhole/track to final 22 leaves, another 6 leaves with tiny blue inkstain to extreme upper margins. Later drab ‘Middle Hill’ boards, yellow paper spine label lettered in manuscript. Joints slightly worn and chipped. Later book plate of Cecil R. Humphery-Smith. Early ink ex libris to title, cancelled in ink at early date. A good copy.
First edition of this rare French treatise on the origins, history and functions of a herald. The title bears a woodcut of a herald in a fleur-de-lys tabard, while the arms on the title verso are those of the dedicatee Claude Gouffier and those on the final leaf of author Jean Le Féron (1504-1570) himself. With its Middle Hill boards and pencil markings to the front pastedown this almost certainly from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillips.