GUÉROULT, Guillaume. [PALAEPHATUS.] Le Premier livre des Narrations Fabuleuses, avec les discours et la Vérité et histoires d’icelles ... Auquel avons adjousté aucunes œuvres poetiques du mesme Traducteur.

GUÉROULT, Guillaume. [PALAEPHATUS.] Le Premier livre des Narrations Fabuleuses, avec les discours et la Vérité et histoires d’icelles ... Auquel avons adjousté aucunes œuvres poetiques du mesme Traducteur.GUROULT, Guillaume. [PALAEPHATUS.] Le Premier livre des Narrations Fabuleuses, avec les discours et la Vrit et histoires dicelles Auquel avons adjoust aucunes uvres poetiques du mesme Traducteur. Lyon: Robert Granjon. 1558. Small 4to. Late 19th century dark blue Jansenist morocco by Chambolle Duru, spine lettered directly in gilt, gilt turn ins, gilt edges, marbled endpapers; ff. [4], lix (i. e. lx), woodcut printers device to title, woodcut head and

GUÉROULT, Guillaume. [PALAEPHATUS.] Le Premier livre des Narrations Fabuleuses, avec les discours et la Vérité et histoires d’icelles ... Auquel avons adjousté aucunes œuvres poetiques du mesme Traducteur. Lyon: Robert Granjon. 1558.

Small 4to. Late 19th-century dark blue Jansenist morocco by Chambolle-Duru, spine lettered directly in gilt, gilt turn-ins, gilt edges, marbled endpapers; ff. [4], “lix” (i.e. lx), woodcut printer’s device to title, woodcut head- and tailpieces; very light rubbing to spine and corners; very subtle, small restoration to lower outer margins of ff. *1-e4, h1-3, p1-4 (not affecting text), otherwise in excellent condition, small bookplate “Ex Libris Jean Bourdel” loosely inserted.

First edition, very rare, of the first French translation of Palaephatus by the Protestant writer Guillaume Guéroult, one of the earliest books printed entirely in Civilité type, this copy handsomely bound by Chambolle-Duru.

Palaephatus (Ancient Greek: Παλαίφατος) is thought to be the pseudonym of a late fourth-century BC Greek author, known solely for the treatise On Incredible Things (Περὶ ἀπίστων). Surviving only in part, the work offers rationalised explanations of Greek myths. Each of the fifty-two brief sections follows a consistent structure: first, the myth or legend (“the fable”) is presented and then rejected as implausible; finally, a rational explanation (“the history”) is proposed, often interpreting the tale as a distorted recollection of historical events. Subjects include Pandora, Bellerophon, Cerberus, Medea, the Amazons, and Daedalus and Icarus. Highly influential during the Byzantine period, the text was first printed by Aldus Manutius in 1505, in the original Greek with a parallel Latin translation.

Guillaume Guéroult (c. 1507-1569), a native of Rouen, studied medicine and botany before entering the printing trade under his uncle, the printer Simon Du Bosc. A convert to Protestantism, Guéroult became known for his religious poetry and his work as a proofreader in Paris. Around 1545, he fled to Geneva with his uncle to escape religious persecution. There, however, he clashed with John Calvin’s moral regime, siding with the so-called libertines, a group of dissenters known for their convivial lifestyle and opposition to Calvinist austerity. Through his brother-in-law, the printer Balthazar Arnoullet, he was also involved in the publication of Michael Servetus’s Christianismi Restitutio (1553), a work condemned by Calvin. Servetus was burned at the stake for heresy, while Guéroult, already expelled from Geneva for immorality, escaped a similar fate. He settled in Lyon around 1550, where he pursued a prolific output of emblem books (which inspired La Fontaine), poetry, translations (including works by Cicero and the Lutheran botanist Leonhard Fuchs), and songs – some of which were set to music by Didier Lupi Second (c. 1520-after 1559).

In 1557, Guéroult partnered with the renowned Lyon printer and punchcutter Robert Granjon (c. 1513-1590), and in 1558 they published the first French translation of On Incredible Things. Guéroult’s translation, in prose, is followed by ten original poetic pieces, including sonnets and odes addressed to contemporary figures such as the poets Joachim Du Bellay (c. 1522-1560) and Étienne Jodelle (1532-1573). The volume is printed entirely in Civilité type, a cursive gothic script invented by Granjon and licensed in 1557, making it one of the first ten books issued in this typeface. The Civilité type was designed to imitate contemporary French handwriting and originally intended for use in books for children. Its name derives from La civilité puérile (Granjon, 1558), a children’s courtesy book based on Erasmus’s De civilitate morum puerorum. Between 1557 and 1562, Granjon published around twenty editions in Civilité. The typeface, which was imitated and adapted as early as the late 1550s, enjoyed popularity across Europe well into the nineteenth century.

Very rare: Library Hub lists just one copy in the UK (Glasgow); OCLC adds four copies in the US (Harvard, Newberry, Virginia, and Yale).

Baudrier II, 59-60; Brunet IV, col. 312. See Vervliet, Robert Granjon, Letter-cutter; 1513-1590: An Oeuvre Catalogue.

SKU: 2121800