The Fall of Charles the Bold and the Victory of Lorraine in One of the Earliest and Finest Books Printed in Lorraine
Blarru, Pierre de. Insigne Nanceidos opus de bello Nanceiano. Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, Petrus Jacobi, 1518.
One of the great printed monuments to the Burgundian Wars, recounting the conflict between Charles the Bold of Burgundy and René II of Lorraine from 1475 to 1477 in a solemn Latin epic written by an eyewitness and illustrated with a remarkable series of Lorraine woodcuts attributed to Gabriel Salmon.
Printed in Saint-Nicolas-de-Port in 1518, the book stands among the earliest and most beautiful productions of the Lorraine press. The present copy, preserved with broad margins and an important aristocratic provenance, combines political propaganda, humanist historiography, chivalric memory, and local patriotic commemoration in a single monumental volume.
Edition & Physical Description
Folio (approximately 272 × 195 mm), printed with generous line spacing and a broad marginal column in the humanist manner.
Illustrated with 36 woodcuts, including repeated impressions from 17 blocks, together with the Lorraine coat of arms on the title verso, decorative initials, printer’s device, and a large grotesque figural initial on the final page influenced by the ornamental vocabulary of Matthias Huss in Lyon.
Seventeenth-century calf binding over five raised bands with gilt spine label, gilt-ruled compartments, and an oval armorial supralibros at centre. The volume remains notably broad-margined throughout, preserving the ceremonial spaciousness of the original printing.
A Printed Monument to the Burgundian Wars
Pierre de Blarru (1437–1510), secretary and counsellor to René II of Lorraine, witnessed both the Burgundian Wars and the burial of Charles the Bold after the Battle of Nancy.
He composed the Nanceidos around 1500 while serving as canon at Saint-Dié. The work transforms the recent military conflict into a classical Latin epic in six books and more than 5,000 verses, celebrating the triumph of Lorraine over Burgundy while maintaining an unusually dignified respect toward the defeated enemy.
The political circumstances surrounding the publication are equally significant. By 1518, the events themselves already belonged to the previous generation. The volume was dedicated not to René II himself but to his son Antoine II, Duke of Lorraine, remembered as “the Good,” whose reign sought balance and neutrality between France and the Holy Roman Empire after the destructive conflicts of the late fifteenth century.
The book therefore functions simultaneously as war memorial, dynastic monument, and political statement about reconciliation and stability after decades of conflict.
Gabriel Salmon’s Woodcuts
The illustration cycle is among the finest achievements of early Lorraine woodcut production.
The title image presents René II on horseback in full armour with raised sword, not as a static ruler but as an active military commander charged with energy and movement. At the opening of the first book, opposing armies are arranged almost ceremonially across a full page: the Burgundians marked by the white cross, the Lorrainers by the black cross that would ultimately prevail.
The remaining illustrations narrate the progress of the war itself. Although celebratory in tone, the imagery repeatedly grants dignity even to the defeated Burgundian side. Most striking is the final woodcut of Book VI, showing the tomb of Charles the Bold surrounded by mourners, the fallen duke represented in full armour with folded hands and sword at his side, accompanied by two loyal dogs resting at the head and foot of the monument.
The cuts are generally attributed on stylistic grounds to the Lorraine artist Gabriel Salmon and remain among the defining visual documents of Lorraine historical identity in the early sixteenth century.
Saint-Nicolas-de-Port and Lorraine Memory
The place of printing itself was deeply symbolic.
Printer Petrus Jacobi established his press not in Nancy but in nearby Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, the very site where René II assembled his forces before the decisive Battle of Nancy in January 1477. After the victory, René commissioned the great basilica of Saint-Nicolas as a monumental act of thanksgiving, with some of the tallest nave columns in France.
The Nanceidos may therefore be understood almost as the printed counterpart to that memorial architecture: a local patriotic object designed for educated readers, noble visitors, and pilgrims alike.
Provenance
Contemporary ownership inscription on title, apparently reading “Johannes de Mandeville,” together with a few contemporary textual corrections. Later bound for the French statesman and bibliophile Gaspard III Fieubet de Naulac (1626–1694), whose gilt armorial supralibros remains on the covers. Subsequently in the collection of William Bateman, 1st Viscount Bateman (1695–1744), with engraved armorial bookplate. Sold London, 25 May 1893; later Anderson Galleries, New York, 1929, number 192.
Literature
Adams B 2103; BM STC French 70; Brun 135; Brunet I, 965; De Bure, Belles-Lettres III, 431f.; Ebert 2463; Graesse I, 438; Mortimer, French 102; Rahir 324.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 40:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I
