The Definitive 1595 Edition Corrected by Marie de Gournay and Preserved in a Monumental Parisian Mosaic Binding
Michel de Montaigne, Les essais. Edition novvelle, trovvee apres le deceds de l’Autheur, reueuë & augmentée par luy d’vn tiers plus qu’aux precedentes Impreßions. Paris, Abel l’Angelier, 1595.
A monumental large-paper copy of the definitive Renaissance edition of Montaigne’s Essais, magnificently preserved in an extraordinary olive-green mosaic binding by Pierre-Marcellin Lortic, among the most celebrated binders of nineteenth-century France. Combining textual importance, exceptional size, editorial corrections associated with Marie de Gournay, and one of the most sumptuous Parisian bindings imaginable, the present volume represents bibliophily at its most ambitious and theatrical.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
á4 é4 í4 A–Z6 Aa–Vv6 Xx4 Aaa–Sss6 Ttt–Vvv4 = 12 leaves, 523 pages, 231 pages. With large woodcut publisher’s device on title, five woodcut headpieces, three woodcut tailpieces, and numerous ornamental initials ranging from five to ten lines. Folio (343 × 217 mm).
The edition of 1595 occupies a singular place in the history of Montaigne’s text. After publishing the first edition of the Essais in 1580 and the enlarged three-book edition in 1588, Montaigne continued revising and augmenting the work until his death in 1592. He left two annotated copies of the 1588 edition to his adopted daughter Marie Le Jars de Gournay, who used one of them as the basis for the present edition, enlarged by approximately one third beyond all previous impressions.
The edition is regarded as the principal early text of the Essais “pour l’authenticité du texte,” preserving hundreds of additions and corrections deriving directly from Montaigne’s own manuscript revisions. Marie de Gournay herself corrected further printing errors by hand during production, and these manuscript corrections survive in the present copy as well.
Physical Description & Binding
Magnificent nineteenth-century olive-green morocco mosaic binding by Pierre-Marcellin Lortic on smooth spine richly decorated with interlaced gilt laurel branches within narrow gilt borders and with two reserved compartments for the title. Covers decorated en suite with the same intricate laurel design surrounding a large central oval left intentionally open. Gilt board edges and broad gilt dentelle turn-ins; doublures of wine-red morocco; free endleaves of crimson moiré silk with additional marbled endleaves; entirely gilt and gauffered edges with diamond pattern incorporating Bourbon fleurs-de-lys. Signed “Lortic” on the pastedown and again at the foot of the elaborate fitted dark green morocco slipcase lined in red morocco.
The sheer dimensions alone are astonishing: the present copy exceeds by more than a centimetre the celebrated Jean Bonna copy, itself possibly bound around 1680 by Le Gascon. The paper quality remains perfectly consistent throughout, while the broad margins give the folio an almost architectural monumentality.
Lortic approached books as jewels. Here, however, the binder balanced sumptuousness with remarkable restraint. The sole decorative motif consists of endlessly interwoven laurel branches, multiplied so abundantly that they seem intended not merely to crown Montaigne, but to surround him completely with triumphal foliage.
The binding also demonstrates nearly every innovation associated with Lortic’s workshop: the warm chiselled gilt edges, the luxurious morocco doublures, the dramatic moiré silk endleaves unfolding like a heavy curtain, and the elaborate fitted morocco slipcase. Lortic was among the first binders of the nineteenth century to replace traditional paper endleaves with moiré silk and brocade, a theatrical gesture later imitated throughout Parisian luxury binding.
Attempt and Legacy: Montaigne’s Passage from Humanism to Humanity
The 1595 edition reflects the final intellectual phase of Montaigne’s thought. A new dialectic emerges between what Montaigne says and how he lives. Earlier scepticism gradually evolves into a more humane and responsible relationship toward existence itself. Beyond irony and doubt, Montaigne approaches a morality rooted less in certainty than in equilibrium, moderation, and good will.
This late Montaigne no longer merely dissects humanity from a distance. He begins to believe in mankind precisely to the extent that he criticizes it. Humanist scepticism slowly transforms into something more compassionate and more deeply human.
The physical history of the present copy strangely mirrors that same movement toward idealization. Earlier marginal annotations in the Apologie de Raimond de Sebonde were almost entirely removed during restoration in pursuit of typographic and visual purity, though significantly the manuscript corrections associated with Marie de Gournay were left untouched. The result is a paradoxical object: Montaigne in near-absolute purity, yet still carrying traces of direct contact with the intellectual circle surrounding his final text.
Pierre-Marcellin Lortic and the Art of the Master Binding
Pierre-Marcellin Lortic (1822–1892) was among the most famous and controversial binders of nineteenth-century France. Simultaneously historian and innovator, he sought to create “du nouveau avec l’ancien” — something new with the old.
Unlike many binders who merely reproduced historical styles mechanically, Lortic imposed his own unmistakable personality upon every commission. The present volume, conceived on an almost operatic scale, stands among the supreme expressions of that philosophy.
Provenance
Binder’s ticket of Lortic père on pastedown. Bound for A. Parran; recorded in Bulletin Morgand 54, Paris 1901, no. 41646, priced at 2,500 gold francs, with Parran bookplate. Later in the collection of Lucien Gougy (1863–1931); his Paris sale II, 7–9 November 1934, lot 705, illustrated full-page in the catalogue and sold for 5,500 francs.
Literature
Adams M 1622; BM STC French 317; Brunet III, 1836; Cioranesco 15283; Ebert 14271; Graesse IV, 579; Lonchamp, Français II, 330; PMM 95; Rahir 548f.; Sayce/Maskell no. 7A; Tchemerzine VIII, 408; Ziegenfuß/Jung II, 169. For Lortic: Beraldi III, 71–94; Devauchelle II, 56–61; Fléty 115.
