One of Only Three Known Vellum Copies, Preserved in Its Original Binding

Graduale Ordinis Cartusiensis. Paris, Guillaume Chaudière, 1578.

One of only three known vellum copies of the 1578 Carthusian Gradual, preserved in its original sixteenth-century binding and originating from one of the wealthiest and most visually ambitious Carthusian foundations in France: Notre-Dame de Bonne-Espérance at Aubevoye near Gaillon in Normandy.

Printed for the monastery founded by Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, the volume belongs to the great age of Counter-Reformation liturgical production in France, yet simultaneously stands in the immediate shadow of the French Wars of Religion and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572.

Edition & Bibliographic Information

Folio (approximately 272 × 197 mm), printed throughout in black and red on vellum.

Illustrated with a half-page title woodcut within a full Renaissance border, numerous grotesque woodcut initials in four sizes, and musical notation printed in black on red four-line staves throughout.

Contemporary blind-stamped pigskin over bevelled wooden boards on six broad raised bands decorated with fillets, retaining its original brass clasps, chased corner fittings, and gilt red edges. The binding survives in unusually fresh and complete condition.

Cardinal Charles de Bourbon and the Charterhouse of Gaillon

The Gradual was produced for the liturgical use of the Carthusian monastery founded in 1571 by Cardinal Charles de Bourbon (1523–1590), Archbishop of Rouen and member of the Bourbon royal line.

Charles de Bourbon established the monastery at Aubevoye near his magnificent residence at Gaillon, among the most celebrated Renaissance château complexes in France. The new Charterhouse functioned in many ways as the spiritual counterpart to the secular magnificence of Gaillon itself.

Although destined for the Church from childhood and already holder of episcopal office by 1540, Charles remained deeply involved in royal politics under both Charles IX and Henri III. The monastery therefore emerged at the intersection of dynastic prestige, Counter-Reformation piety, and the violent instability of the Huguenot Wars.

A Liturgical Book as Foundation Image

The title woodcut functions almost as a visual foundation charter for the monastery.

Charles de Bourbon appears presenting the newly founded Charterhouse to the Virgin and Child, while behind him kneels the assembled Carthusian convent. On the altar in the foreground lies an open choirbook — almost certainly intended to represent the Gradual itself from which the monks would soon sing.

This remarkable self-referential detail becomes especially compelling in the present copy because the book appears to have functioned as a kind of master exemplar for liturgical correction and use within the monastery itself.

A contemporary hand, possibly even connected to the printing workshop, added in red calligraphy on the title page:

“Correctu[m] i[n] Card ad cui[us] forma[m] cet[era] corriga[n]tur”

indicating that this copy served as the corrected standard against which others were to be revised. Additional manuscript corrections and musical annotations appear throughout the volume.

One of Three Known Vellum Copies

Only three vellum copies of the edition are known today.

Van Praet recorded one in the royal library in Paris, while another later entered the celebrated Bourbon-Parma collection and is now preserved at Harvard. The present example is therefore among the rarest surviving French liturgical books of the late sixteenth century.

Unlike the Harvard copy, which was rebound in the nineteenth century, the present volume retains its original richly blind-stamped pigskin binding with its massive wooden boards and intact clasps. The survival of both vellum textblock and original monastic binding together in this condition is extraordinary.

Revolution, Dispersal, and Carrie Estelle Doheny

The Charterhouse of Gaillon was dissolved during the French Revolution in 1790 and sold into private ownership. The Gradual subsequently disappeared from record for a long period before resurfacing in the twentieth century.

Around the middle of the century it was acquired from the London bookseller Hellmut Albert Feisenberger by the great American collector Carrie Estelle Doheny, who donated it to the Catholic seminary St. Mary’s of the Barrens in Perryville, Missouri. Following the closure of the institution’s educational program, the collection was dispersed at Christie’s New York in 2001.

Provenance

Carthusian monastery of Notre-Dame de Bonne-Espérance at Aubevoye near Gaillon. Later Carrie Estelle Doheny, with her gilt morocco bookplate. Christie’s New York, 14 December 2001, number 208.

Literature

Alès 305; BM STC French 270; Bohatta 552; Brun 200; Mortimer, French 253; Van Praet VI, 35, no. 334bis. Not in Adams or Brunet.

For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 31:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I