Of the Greatest Rarity: A Norman Chronicle in a Superb Trautz-Bauzonnet Binding

Les croniques de normendie. Lesquelles ont este de nouueau corrigees a la verite. Esquelles sont contenues les vaillances et proesses des ducz, barons et seigneurs de la noble duche de normendie… Rouen, Richard Macé [title] and Jean Burges [colophon], [circa 1505 or 1513].

One of the great rarities of early French historical printing: the fourth known edition of the Chronicles of Normandy, printed in Rouen in the early sixteenth century and preserved in a magnificent red morocco master binding by Trautz-Bauzonnet. The volume boasts an extraordinary provenance extending through the libraries of Robert Lang, Richard Heber, Prince d’Essling, Félix Solar, J. Coppinger, and Louis-Hippolyte Rangeard de La Germonière.

Edition & Bibliographic Information

A8 B–D4 E8 F–H4 I8 K–M4 N8 O–Q4 R8 S–V4 X8 AA–CC4 DD8 EE–FF4 GG8 = 138 leaves, 6 leaves.

Title printed in red and black; double-column gothic printing throughout with continuous dark red ruling.

Illustrated with a large title woodcut printed in red and surrounded by an elaborate black border assembled from eight separate blocks, together with a further large woodcut on the final leaf, a grotesque historiated initial opening the prologue, and numerous criblé initials throughout. Small quarto (173 × 124 mm).

The bibliographical history of the edition long puzzled scholars. After two competing Rouen editions of 1487 and a further edition around 1500, the present undated fourth edition appeared in multiple variants and circulated through shared distribution networks in Normandy and Brittany. It was once catalogued as an incunable, though the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke later reassigned it to the sixteenth century on typographical grounds. Modern scholarship generally dates the edition to around 1513.

Physical Description & Binding

Magnificent nineteenth-century red morocco binding by Trautz-Bauzonnet over five raised bands decorated with pointillé tooling. Spine compartments framed by double gilt fillets with gilt title lettering in the second and third compartments and small decorative tools in the remaining compartments. Covers framed by triple gilt fillets; board edges with double gilt fillets. Wide gilt dentelle borders, marbled endleaves, and entirely gilt-over-marbled edges throughout. The mirror signed:

“Trautz-Bauzonnet”

The binding was commissioned for the great collector Félix Solar and survives in impeccable condition, representing one of the finest expressions of nineteenth-century French bibliophilic craftsmanship.

The Chronicle of Normandy and the Legacy of Rollo

At its core, the Chronicles of Normandy descend from the Roman de Rou, composed between 1160 and 1174 by the Norman poet Robert Wace for King Henry II of England. Wace traced the history of the Norman dukes beginning with the Viking leader Rollo, who received Normandy in 911, thereby establishing the foundation myth of Norman political identity.

Though later reworked into prose and continued through the end of the Hundred Years’ War in 1453, the chronicle retained enormous cultural importance as both a regional history and a broader Anglo-Norman historical narrative. The final historical horizon — the Battle of Castillon and the collapse of English territorial power in France — subtly transformed the perspective of what had originally been a strongly Anglo-Norman chronicle.

The Remarkable Woodcuts

The edition opens and closes with striking large woodcuts depicting the granting of Normandy to Rollo. A vassal kneels before a ruler surrounded by his court in order to receive a document of investiture.

Particularly sophisticated is the title-page composition. The central woodcut, printed in red, is surrounded by a separately printed black architectural border and reveals both an interior rendered in central perspective and a distant landscape visible through an open doorway. The final woodcut simplifies and reverses the composition, apparently copied from earlier Parisian models associated with the Trepperel workshop.

The relationship between original and copy mirrors the chronicle’s own concern with continuity, legitimacy, and historical transmission. On the title page, Rollo gazes toward the future promised within the chronicle; at the end, the mirrored composition seems to turn him back toward history itself.

A Legendary Provenance

The copy’s provenance reads almost like a history of nineteenth-century bibliophily.

It first belonged to Robert Lang, owner of what was regarded as the finest collection of French gothic books in England. In 1828 it was purchased by the legendary English bibliomaniac Richard Heber, whose libraries Walter Scott described as surpassing all others in the world.

Following Heber’s dispersal sales, the volume returned to France through François Victor Masséna, Prince d’Essling, son of Napoleon’s famous marshal. From there it passed to Félix Solar, who commissioned the present master binding from Trautz-Bauzonnet, and later to J. Coppinger and the Norman politician and local historian Louis-Hippolyte Rangeard de La Germonière, whose armorial ex-libris depicts his château near Cherbourg.

The succession of such celebrated owners testifies not only to the rarity of the edition but to its longstanding reputation as one of the great treasures of Norman historical literature.

Provenance

Robert Lang sale, 1828, lot 1689 (£2.2.0), with manuscript acquisition note.
Richard Heber (1773–1833), with “Bibliotheca Heberiana” stamp; Sotheby’s sale, London, 1834, lot 5142 (“fine copy”).
François Victor Masséna, Prince d’Essling (1799–1863); Paris sale 1847.
Félix Solar (1815–1871); Paris sale 1860, lot 2854.
J. Coppinger, with gilt ownership inscription and bibliographical notes.
Louis-Hippolyte Rangeard de La Germonière (1807–1887), with illustrated ex-libris depicting his château.
P. Sourget, Chartres, Catalogue V, 1988, no. 7.

Literature

Not in Adams; Aquilon/Girard, no. 21; Bechtel C-348 (“1510/15”); cf. BM STC French 326 (“1505?”); Brunet I, 1874; Davies, Fairfax Murray French, no. 636; Frère I, 240f.; Graesse II, 147; GW VI, col. 494; Hillard 617 (“circa 1513”).

For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 71:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II