Illuminated by Étienne Colaud for Jean de Laval, Seigneur de Châteaubriant
Caesar, Gaius Julius. Les commentaires de Iules Cesar. Paris, Pierre Vidoue for Poncet le Preux and Galliot du Pré, 1531.
The only known vellum copy of the first complete French translation of Julius Caesar’s writings, illuminated throughout by the royal court painter Étienne Colaud and preserved with one of the most distinguished and uninterrupted provenances in French bibliophilic history.
Produced within the immediate circle of Francis I, the volume belonged successively to Jean de Laval, Anne de Montmorency, Diane de Poitiers, Anne de Bavière, Edward Harley, and the Earls of Dysart at Ham House before remaining for three generations in a Parisian private collection until its acquisition in 2021. Few Renaissance books survive with a provenance of comparable continuity and historical significance.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
Large folio (325 × 210 mm), printed on vellum with marginal commentary columns, ruled throughout in red and with yellow highlighting of versals.
Illustrated with an architectural title border, the royal arms of France on the verso of the title, seven full-page floral borders, two half-page maps, and eighteen woodcut illustrations, all illuminated in gold and colours. In addition, twelve independent miniatures painted by Étienne Colaud replace the printed woodcuts entirely. The volume further contains nearly two hundred illuminated historiated initials heightened in gold and colours.
Bound in an early eighteenth-century French red morocco Harley binding with richly gilt spine, gilt fleur-de-lys decoration, marbled endleaves, double vellum flyleaves, and gilt edges.
The First Complete French Caesar
The volume contains the first complete French translation of the Corpus Caesarianum, including De bello Gallico, De bello civile, De bello Alexandrino, De bello Africo, and De bello Hispaniensi.
The translation was prepared principally by Étienne de Laigue, seigneur de Beauvais, diplomat, soldier, and trusted servant of Francis I. Following the disastrous French defeat at Pavia in 1525 and the king’s imprisonment, Caesar acquired renewed significance within the French court as a model of military command, political endurance, and imperial authority. Francis I rewarded Laigue with royal privileges and admission into the Ordre de Saint-Michel.
The present edition, issued in imposing folio format, differs fundamentally from the later smaller reprints intended for broader educational use. It belongs instead to the ceremonial and aristocratic culture of the French Renaissance court.
Étienne Colaud and Royal Illumination
The vellum copy was illuminated by Étienne Colaud, among the most important Parisian illuminators active between roughly 1512 and 1541 and a known artist in royal service.
Rather than colouring the printed woodcuts, Colaud replaced twelve of them entirely with independent painted miniatures of exceptional quality. The title page itself was transformed through the insertion of the arms of Jean de Laval, Seigneur de Châteaubriant, painted directly over the publisher’s device of Galliot du Pré.
The floral title borders, maps, battle scenes, and historiated initials were all heightened with gold and richly varied colour. The miniatures remain preserved in remarkable freshness. Together they give the volume the appearance and authority of a luxury manuscript rather than a printed classical text.
Jean de Laval and the Court of Francis I
The first owner, Jean de Laval, Seigneur de Châteaubriant (1486–1543), belonged to the innermost circle of Francis I.
His wife, Françoise de Foix, served for many years as the king’s principal mistress before being displaced around 1528 by Anne de Pisseleu. Jean de Laval himself was later appointed governor of Brittany in 1531, the very year this Caesar appeared. The present illuminated vellum copy may well have been connected to that elevation.
Following Laval’s death, the book passed to the Connétable Anne de Montmorency, perhaps the most powerful nobleman in sixteenth-century France after the king himself. Montmorency later presented the volume to Diane de Poitiers, the celebrated mistress of Henry II. Through Anne de Bavière, princesse de Condé, the book eventually entered the sale of the Château d’Anet library in 1724.
Harley, Ham House, and an Unbroken Provenance
At the 1724 Anet sale the book was acquired by Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, one of the greatest collectors in eighteenth-century England. It may have been rebound shortly afterward in France, possibly by Augustin Duseuil, in the magnificent red morocco binding it retains today.
In 1744 the volume was purchased by Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart, and remained at Ham House until the Sotheby’s sale of 1938. It then entered a Parisian private collection, where it remained for three generations until reappearing in 2021.
The uninterrupted provenance from the early sixteenth century to the present is virtually unparalleled for a Renaissance printed book of this importance.
Provenance
Jean de Laval, Seigneur de Châteaubriant. Anne de Montmorency. Diane de Poitiers. Anne de Bavière, princesse de Condé. Sold at the Château d’Anet sale in 1724 to Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford. Later Lionel, 4th Earl of Dysart at Ham House until the Sotheby’s sale of 1938. Thereafter Parisian private collection until 2021.
Literature
BM STC French 89; Brunet I, 1459; Ebert 3301; Graesse II, 10; Lonchamp, Français II, 90; Quentin-Bauchart I, 315; Schweiger II/1, 53; Van Praet III, 38–39; Rahir 362. Not in Adams or Bechtel.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 26:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I
