Théophraste Des Odeurs mis de Grec en nostre langue françoyse avec annotations des lieux plus notables et difficiles avec l’histoire de quelques Plantes.
Par J. de l’Estrade
À Paris, chez Guillaume Guillard, rue Saint Jacques, à l’enseigne Sainte Barbe. 1556.
In-12 93x140mm, half calf with marbled paper covers, spine with 5 raised bands, gilt title label. Endpapers, frontispiece, 64ff., endpaper. Complete.
First French edition of Theophrastus's De Odoribus, which is the eighth book of his De causis plantarum (Causes of Plants). This is the first edition of De Odoribus printed on its own.
A very rare edition, WorldCat lists only two copies.
De causis plantarum (3rd century BC) has been passed down to us through several manuscripts, including the famous Vaticanus Urbinas graecus 61, which, as its name suggests, is now in the Vatican, having previously belonged to the Duke of Urbino. (Suzanne Amigues. L’épisode crétois dans l’histoire du Vaticanus urbinas graecus 61. 2015)
The first edition of the text was included in the edition of the complete works of Aristotle and Theophrastus published by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1497.
The book begins with a letter to Monsignor L'Aubespin, followed by a pleasant note to the reader in which Jean de L'Estrade explains, among other things, his motivations for translating the text: [...] ayant pris en main Theophraste des senteurs, après l’avoir lu et relu plusieurs fois, j’en ai trouvé tant de senteurs odoriférantes que je pensais être totalement parfumé sans avoir mis sur moi aucune senteur artificielle, ce qui m’a fort incité à le traduire en notre langue vulgaire selon ma petite capacité.
Following this note to the reader, the text is translated and accompanied by L’Estrade’s annotations. The book is presented in sixty-nine sections, with an introduction to the philosophical analysis of odors, followed by a description and etiology of odoriferous properties, techniques of perfumery, and medicinal and domestic uses of aromatic substances.
The second part of the book is a page-by-page explanation and analysis of each of the sixty-nine sections, with concrete applications of Theophrastus’s principles to apothecary recipes. Here are some examples:
Avec le vin. Folio 10
Anciennement en d’aucuns lieux au temps de vendanges, on avait coutume en faisant le vin d‘y mêler des fleurs & senteurs de sorte que depuis il semble qu’on a retenu ce langage, la fleur du vin, de cette coutume la.
Melinon. Folio 16
L’onguent se compose encore aujourd'hui de pomme de coing. Lesquelles les apothicaires coupent et broient puis les mettent dans de l'huile devant le soleil seulement et l’appelle oleum-cytoniorum. Il n’y entre point de choses aromatiques comme le temps passe.
Avec de la myrrhe. Folio 24
Théophraste semble vouloir signifier que l’onguent & odeur de la myrrhe est plus odorante quand on la broye, ou qu’il n’est après ou autrement. Outre cette chaleur bénigne excitée en la myrrhe, quand on la passe par le feu, fait que l’onguent ainsi mêlée, se tempère.
Very little is known about Jean de l’Estrade. His reference to Gascony when he praises François Roier in his preface to Claude de L’Aubespin, auditor of accounts, leads us to link him to a Jean de l’Estrade, squire, lord of La Cousse (Périgord), negotiating with the King of Navarre for the purchase of the parish of Coulaures in 1544. According to the departmental archives of Haute Vienne (5F Fonds Auguste Bosvieux p. 102).
The printer of this edition, Guillaume Guillard, was the nephew of Charlotte Guillard, a major figure in the world of Renaissance printing.
She ran the Soleil d’Or printing house and dominated the market for legal and Church Fathers publications of her time [...] Bringing together in a single intellectual project the most conservative theologians and the most innovative scholars, her output bears witness to the lively debates that stirred intellectual circles during the Reformation period.
(Rémi Jimenes. Charlotte Guillard. A Woman Printer in the Renaissance. Presses universitaires François-Rabelais. 2017)
In 1556, we know that Guillaume Guillard owned his own bookstore, located at the address Rue Saint Jacques under the sign Sainte Barbe, an address he shared with his brother-in-law Thomas Bellot.
He published editions for the Soleil d’Or and co-published works with his brother-in-law Thomas Bellot, and in his own name at the address Rue Saint Jacques under the sign Sainte Barbe. Theophrastus of Odors is one of the few books printed solely by Guillaume Guillard that we found during our research.
As the book is missing from Brunet, La Caille, and Renouard Philippe, only Graesse VI. 127 mentions this French edition.
A university Latin version incorporating an analysis by Adrian Turnebo was printed the same year in Paris by Michel de Vascosan (Graesse VI. 127) :
https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10151002?page=,1
This edition includes the text translated into Latin, an analysis section, and the text in Greek.
Condition : binding rubbed, worn and fragile. Restoration of a loss on the title page, good interior condition.
