From the Library of the Greatest French Bibliophile of the Seventeenth Century

[Jacques-Auguste de Thou]. Five remarkable volumes from the celebrated Bibliotheca Thuana, assembled between the 1580s and the mid-seventeenth century and preserved in a sequence of characteristic bindings reflecting the evolution of one of the most important private libraries in early modern Europe.

The group comprises six historical works in five bindings ranging from an immaculate flexible vellum bachelor binding to monumental red and olive morocco folios bearing the alliance arms of Jacques-Auguste de Thou and his second wife Gasparde de La Chastre. Together they form a rare material portrait of de Thou’s collecting practice across several decades.

The Library of Jacques-Auguste de Thou

Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553–1617), president of the Parlement of Paris, historian, diplomat, friend of Montaigne and Scaliger, and described by contemporaries as “the most brilliant bibliophile of the seventeenth century,” spent four decades assembling what was widely regarded as the greatest scholarly library in France.

Unlike ceremonial princely libraries, the Bibliotheca Thuana was fundamentally a working intellectual library. Though admired for the elegance of its bindings, its true purpose lay in scholarship, historical inquiry, and the acquisition of the newest and best editions from across Europe. Frankfurt, Hanau, Brescia, Naples: de Thou pursued books internationally and with remarkable speed for his time.

The present group reveals the evolution of his collecting habits with unusual clarity.

The Evolution of the Thuana Bindings

The earliest volume, Pietro Cornelio’s Historia di Fiandra (1582), still bears de Thou’s bachelor supralibros on an elegant flexible vellum binding in the prized “ivory” colour associated with refined late Renaissance parchment bindings. The similarly early Wurstisen folio of 1585 likewise preserves the bachelor arms and monogram.

After de Thou’s marriages — first in 1587 and later in 1602 to Gasparde de La Chastre — the bindings changed accordingly. The later volumes display the celebrated alliance arms and the ligature “IAGG,” combining the initials of Jacques-Auguste and Gasparde. Particularly remarkable is the 1643 Naples imprint, acquired long after de Thou’s death by his son Jacques-Auguste de Thou the Younger, yet still bound in the exact same Thuana style using the paternal alliance arms.

Although the bindings span decades, their aesthetic remains remarkably coherent: restrained, scholarly, aristocratic, and deliberately opposed to ostentatious display. As Bogeng famously observed, unlike the flamboyant luxury bindings of Jean Grolier, de Thou’s books were “good, without being bindings of ostentation.”

The Historical Works

The group also reflects the encyclopedic breadth of de Thou’s historical interests.

Included are:

• Pietro Cornelio’s important history of the wars in Flanders

• Christian Wurstisen’s foundational collection of German medieval chroniclers

• Johann Pistorius’ great collection of sources on the Holy Roman Empire

• Marquard Freher’s edition of Cosmas of Prague’s Bohemian chronicle

• Giorgio Basta’s influential military treatise on light cavalry

• Giovanni Antonio Summonte’s monumental history of Naples

Together the volumes map de Thou’s sustained engagement with political, dynastic, military, ecclesiastical, and regional history across Europe.

The Fate of the Bibliotheca Thuana

In his 1616 testament, de Thou explicitly requested that the library remain intact “for the benefit of his family and of scholarship.” His son expanded the collection enormously, but financial catastrophe eventually forced the sale of the library in 1680.

The books were initially rescued en bloc by Jean-Jacques Charron, Marquis de Menars, before later passing to Armand-Gaston-Maximilien de Soubise and eventually to the Prince de Soubise. The celebrated Soubise sales dispersed the library definitively in the late eighteenth century.

Several of the present volumes can be traced through major bibliophilic collections after this dispersal, including Richard Heber, Ernst Kyriss, and others. Across centuries of changing ownership, the books remained remarkably well preserved and today survive as exceptionally coherent witnesses to one of the great intellectual libraries of early modern Europe.

Provenance

Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553–1617).
Jacques-Auguste de Thou the Younger (1609–1677).
Jean-Jacques Charron, Marquis de Menars.
Armand-Gaston-Maximilien de Soubise (1674–1749).
Charles Rohan, Prince de Soubise.
Later collections include Richard Heber, Ernst Kyriss, Cortlandt F. Bishop, and others.

Literature

Cornelio: BM STC Italian 199; EDIT 16 CNCE 13336; Graesse II, 269.
Wurstisen: Adams G 494; BM STC German 928; VD16 W 4675–4676.
Pistorius/Freher: VD17 23:232015Z; VD17 23:231164A.
Basta: Cockle 724; VD17 23:286886E.
Summonte: Brunet V, 594; Graesse VI, 529.
For the bindings and de Thou: Arnim 68; Bogeng I–III; Guigard II, 452; Olivier 216.

For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, lot 95a–e: Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II