1682 Scarce French Book - Mercure Galant with Folding Granada's Alhambra illustration.
(description)
Author : Jean Donneau de Visé.
Title : MERCURE GALANT Dédié a Monseigneur le Dauphin, May 1682.
Language : Text in French.
Publisher : A Lyon, Chez Thomas Amaulry, 1682. First edition.
Size : 6 " X 4 " .
Pages : 251 pages.
Binding : Attractive and very good full calf leather binding (slightly worn and scuffed) under a protective mylar cover.
Content : Good content (bright, tight and clean, rare staining or foxing, small hole on the lower margin of first pages).
Illustrations : Complete with the Very nice folding illustration of Granada's Alhambra Palace. Also, two folding music scores sheets and another large folding illustration.
The book : Scarce 17th century edition of this Mercure galant founded by the writer Jean Donneau de Visé in 1672. The name refers to the god Mercury, the messenger of the gods; the title also echos the Mercure françoys which was France's first literary gazette, founded in 1611 by the Paris bookseller J. Richer. The magazine's goal was to inform elegant society about life in the court and intellectual/artistic debates; the gazette (which appeared irregularly) featured poems, anecdotes, news (marriages, gossip), theatre and art reviews, songs, and fashion reviews, and it became fashionable (and sometimes scandalous) to be mentioned in its pages.