Mahieu-Binding – Paris, c. 1557

50 Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius,In somnium Scipionis libri II – Saturnaliorum libri VII.

Basel: Johannes Herwagen the Elder, 1535.

2°, ca. 294 x 205 mm. 20 leaves, 334 pages, 1 leaf. – With numerous woodcut initials, 2 printer’s marks on the title and at the end of the volume, one woodcut map of the world, 8 schematic woodcuts within the text. – Chestnut-brown morocco binding 300 x 208 x 36 mm, lavishly impressed with fillets of gold, wax painting.The covers are decorated with - starting from the outside - a rectangular frame painted in black and vermilion, a frame composed of complex geometrical black strapwork, a cartouche with scrollwork, painted in white and vermilion. In the centre: almond-shaped black and red cartouche bearing the title (on the front cover) and respectively the motto (on the rear cover). Note of ownership on the front cover. Flat spine with three false bands, ends of spine with pallets, the two inner sections with criss-cross decoration.Turn-ins with fillet of gold, interrupted with pallets. Gilt edges. Fly-leaves with water-mark “Blüte, vierblättrig” (four-petalled flower). – Originally with four pairs of ties.The white painting flaked off in some portions, otherwise very good condition.

PROVENANCE: 1. Thomas Mahieu (Latinized: Maioli; c. 1526-c. 1596).

Due to his name, the bibliophile owner who had his books signed: “Tho Maioli et amicorum”, had long been suspected to be Italian, and in consequence his bindings too were considered as of Italian origin. It was Geoffrey D. Hobson in 1926 who was able to prove that almost all the volumes had in fact been bound in Paris between 1550 and 1565 and, moreover, that their owner had lived in Northern France and must have been acquainted with Grolier.Thomas Mahieu’s life was virtually unknown until the publication of Jeanne Veyrin- Forrer’s research in 1994. She discovered that Thomas was almost certainly the son of Jehan Mahieu, Grolier’s chief clerk in Milan during the second French occupation of the duchy, and an Italian mother.Orphaned at an early age, he is thought to have been brought up in Italy with Italian as his first language. Between 1549 and 1560 Mahieu was private secretary to the French Queen, Catherine de Medici, becoming one of the king’s advisors. In 1562 he became treasurer-general for Languedoil residing in Orléans. He is last mentioned as a royal secretary in 1596. Mahieu had no known connection with the literary circles of the time and no book was dedicated to him. He was, however, the principal non-royal client, after Grolier, of the leading Parisian bookbinders from the 1550s until after Grolier’s death in 1565. Following Grolier’s example, he added “et amicorum” after his name. Sometimes, he used monograms and mottos: At first – as in the present example – “Ingratis servire nefas” (“It is a horror to serve the ungrateful“), and later:“Inimici mei mea mihi non me mihi” (“My enemies have deprived me of my goods, yet not of my soul”). It is probably not unreasonable to imagine Mahieu as a somewhat embittered man. One hundred and twelve finely bound books that he owned are listed by Anthony Hobson (2004). The collection appears to have been dispersed in Orléans after his death.

2. Librairie Lardanchet, catalogue 57, no. 202. In 1964 acquired by

3. Collection Otto Schäfer, Schweinfurt, OS 359.

TEXT: Only 16th-century edition printed in Basel.With a prologue by Joachim Camerarius containing a dedication to Paul Baron von Schwarzenberg. The volume comprises two major works of Late Antiquity by Macrobius, composed maybe around 400-420 and first printed in Venice in 1472. The Neoplatonic commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Sciponis was of great influence in the Latin Middle Ages, while the Saturnalia, a fictional symposium centred on Virgil and including Symmachus and Servius among its interlocutors, had its greatest vogue in the 15th century. This work is most celebrated for the world map on p. 78 of which Shirley gives an inadequate description: “There was also a Basle edition of 1535 where the outline of Africa has been updated according to more modern concepts”. In fact, it is a completely new map, in which the mystical southern continent Terra australis has been eliminated and is only hinted at by a depiction of the peninsula Malakka, which is extended to the south. The depiction of Africa has been improved on the basis of the latest discoveries and only a few geographical names recall the earlier version.

BINDING: From the beginning of the 16th century France took a lead in the art of book-binding in Europe, which it maintained up to the 19th century. Nevertheless, there are hardly any names of bookbinders known from the Renaissance period. Therefore it has become a common practice to name bindings and their styles after the great bibliophiles of the time. Thomas Mahieu must be included among these stylistically influential collectors, alongside the famous Jean Grolier. Italy and the French court were his principal spheres of influence. For the binding at hand it is close to impossible to identify the bookbinder since, with the exception of a narrow pallet for the false bands and the gilt turn-ins, no stamps were used. Geoffrey Hobson divided Mahieu’s bindings into seven groups on the basis of mottos, stamps and stylistic properties. Significant characteristics are the form of the owner’s name, the motto in the cartouche of the rear cover and the strapwork painted in between the fillets. On the grounds of these characteristics the binding can be ranged among Hobson’s group IV, though he has not recorded our copy. Hence, a date around 1557 and a localisation to Paris appear likely.

LITERATURE: Hobson 1926; Adams 1967, M-64; Foot 1978, p. 186;Adams 1987, p. 452;Arnim 1992, no. 51;Veyrin- Forrer 1994; Hobson 2004. Zinner 21964, no. 1598;VD 16 M 48; Shirley, no. 13 note.