1560 PIERRE MESSIE Miscellany of Several Lessons antique 16th CENTURY VELLUM

Les diverses lecons de Pierre Messie, gentilhomme de Seuile, contenans la lecture de variables histoires, & autres choses mémorables, mises en francoys par Claude Gruget Parisien.
Le tout reveu & corrige par ledit Gruget.

by MEXIA, Pero

Paris; 1560


("The various lessons of Pierre Messie, gentleman of Seville,  containing the reading of various stories, & other memorable things, put in French")

translated from Castellian


Extremely rare edition of a Renaissance classic (1st in Spanish 1540) in a translation by Cl. Gruget)

Encyclopedic miscellany compiled on ancient authors (Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Aulus Gellius...) dealing with various subjects:
pope Joan, Amazones, Muhammad, the greatness of the Roman Empire, the opinion of ancient Emperors on Christ, the art of swimming, bull's blood (that kills those who drink it), who was the first to plant vines and to put water in wine, the first bookshop in the world, etc.

The humanist and historian Mexia (1497-1551) was the official chronicler of the court of Charles V.


Printer's mark on title.


Some period manuscript marginalia from various hands.


- Ref. Cp. STC French 312 (Cavelier 1557 ed.). - Cp. Adams, Brunet, Cioranescu (other ed.). -


Original vellum, manuscript title at the spine, damaged cover corners, damage to the margins of the last few leaves, lacks ties and front endpapers

[10]-380 ff.

Size: 3 by 4 3/4 inches

 Text in French
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Pedro Mejia (old Spanish spelling: Pero Mexia), (1497 – 1551) was a Spanish Renaissance writer, humanist and historian.

He was born and died in Seville, where he lived for the majority of his life and for which there is always a special affection in his writings.

He studied humanities and law at Seville and Salamanca universities. He maintained correspondence with Erasmus of Rotterdam, Luis Vives and Juan Gines de Sepulveda. In 1548, he was appointed official chronicler of the court of Emperor Charles V.

His major work is Silva de varia leccion (A Miscellany of Several Lessons) (1540), which became an early best seller across Europe.
It was reprinted 17 times in the sixteenth century and was translated into Italian (1542), French (1552) and English (1571).
Within a century, Silva reached 31 editions in Spanish, and 75 in foreign languages
 It is an encyclopedic miscellany or mixture of subjects of interest across the diverse repertoire of humanistic knowledge of the time.
The work takes material from the Attic Nights by Aulus Gellius, the Banquet of the Sophists by Athenaeus, the Saturnalia of Macrobius, the Memorable deeds and sayings of Valerius Maximus, the De inventoribus rerum of Polydore Vergil, the Moralia and Parallel Lives of Plutarch and, above all, the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. It also contains work by Erasmus of Rotterdam. Traces of this miscellany can be found in works by Mateo Alemán, Miguel de Cervantes, Shakespeare and Montaigne, to mention only a few of the authors he influenced.
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