1521 Sensuyt le Rommant de la Rose (Romance of the Rose), Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. Janot, Paris

Rare circa 1520-1521 (no date) Paris (Janot) printing of Guillaume de Lorris' and Jean de Meun's medieval romance, The Romance of the Rose, here titled Sensuyt le Rommant de la Rose; very few records exist for sales of this edition, a truly rare edition. This copy is missing two leaves, a1 and a8 (I did produce two simple facsimiles, on acid-free laid artist paper, so the buyer will have the context of the full text).

About The Romance of the Rose -

Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose) is a medieval poem written in Old French and presented as an allegorical dream vision. As poetry, The Romance of the Rose is a notable instance of courtly literature, purporting to provide a "mirror of love" in which the whole art of romantic love is disclosed. Its two authors conceived it as a psychological allegory; throughout the Lover's quest, the word Rose is used both as the name of the titular lady and as an abstract symbol of female sexuality. The names of the other characters function both as personal names and as metonyms illustrating the different factors that lead to and constitute a love affair. Its long-lasting influence is evident in the number of surviving manuscripts of the work, in the many translations and imitations it inspired, and in the praise and controversy it inspired.

The Romance of the Rose was written in two stages by two authors. In the first stage of composition, circa 1230, Guillaume de Lorris wrote 4,058 verses describing a courtier's attempts at wooing his beloved woman. The first part of the poem's story is set in a walled garden, an example of a locus amoenus, a traditional literary topos in epic poetry and chivalric romance. Forty-five years later, circa 1275, in the second stage of composition, Jean de Meun or Jehan Clopinel wrote 17,724 additional lines, in which he expanded the roles of his predecessor's allegorical personages, such as Reason and Friend, and added new ones, such as Nature and Genius. They, in encyclopedic breadth, discuss the philosophy of love.

The Romance of the Rose was both popular and controversial. One of the most widely read works in France through the Renaissance, it was possibly the most read book in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. Its emphasis on sensual language and imagery, along with its supposed promulgation of misogyny, provoked attacks by Jean Gerson, Christine de Pizan, Pierre d'Ailly, and many other writers and moralists of the 14th and 15th centuries. The historian Johan Huizinga has written: "It is astonishing that the Church, which so rigorously repressed the slightest deviations from dogma of a speculative character, suffered the teaching of this breviary of the aristocracy (for the Roman de la Rose was nothing else) to be disseminated with impunity."

About This Edition -

In The Early Editions of the Rose (1906, p. 53), Bourdillon writes that "the date of this book must be 1520 or 1521, as Jehan Janot, died before 17th June, 1522, and it is printed from the edition of 1519 (by Michel le Noir)."

Rare Book Hub records only two copies of this edition being offered -

In Nov. 2019 (Behague sale, lot 85) and Nov. 2021 (Livres Rares, lot 48) Christie's offered Frederic de la Rochefoucauld's copy (no sale was recorded, and both the listings are withdrawn now).

In March of 2024 I purchased this copy from Forum Auctions.

Forum wrote, "We can only trace two other copies at auction since 1922".

French Vernacular Books (Pettegree, Walsby and Wilkinson, 2007) list this book as catalogue number 24280.

Adams catalogues this work as L1516.

Brigitte Moreau lists this work in Vol. 3, no 122.

See the USTC catalogue for more references.

Bibliographic Details -

Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) number 29408, found in three libraries; Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal Paris, National Library of Wales Aberystwyth and Trinity College Library Cambridge.

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 20 x 14 x 3 cm. A quarto with odd gathering lengths (4, 6 and 8). Clamshell box executed by the Temple Bindery of Oxford. Leather binding of the French style, no decoration. Spine with four raised bands; four compartments with a central flowering vase in gilt, surrounded by leafy sprays and a border of fillet and a roll, one compartment with the title in gilt. All edges red.

Missing original eaves a1 and a8 (title page and one page of text). I reproduced these, in simple facsimile; they are not meant as replacements but simply to give you the context of the entire text.

Printed in double columns, 41 lines to a full column.

There are two in-text illustrations, one repeated (for a total of three illustrations). The missing title page did have a woodcut, which was strangely printed on both sides; as noted, I have included a facsimile of this leaf.

Pages - 140 of 142 leaves, not numbered.

Collation - a2-7 (of a1-8), b4, c4, d4, e4, f8, g4, h4, i4, k4, l8, m4, n4, o4, p4, q8, r4, s4, t4, v4, x8, y4, z4, pi4, A4, B4, C8, D4, E6

Collation matches catalogues.

Leaf diii is mistakenly signed diiii, as noted in the catalogues.

Strangely, the title page mistakenly references a work that wasn't included in this work (Le Songe du Vergier), "Aultrement dit le Songe Vergier".

Condition -

See pics. Missing title page and a8, supplied in simple loose facsimile. In a nice clamshell box with little wear. Binding worn, with corner/edge wear, rubs, starts at the top and bottom of joints and chip to top of spine and several small worm holes. Ex libris torn from pastedown and flyleaf of marbled endpaper not present. Blank unpaginated binder's endpaper shaken. '

No title page. a2 with some damage, a little loss to first printed words. Text block toned throughout, with some moisture marks from edges, fox spots, occasional small worm hole, dog-eared corners, chipped corners, page edge tears, fox and ink spots, etc. No original a8. Through d gathering not connected for 1.5" from bottom at gutter. d gathering possibly washed. Spill marks f gathering. r gathering bttm moisture mark into text; occasional to end. Ink lining y3v-y4r. E1 to end corner stain toned. E5 chip to bttm corner, with a little loss of text. E5 and E6 more chipping around edges. Annotations last leaf.