L'instruction du roy en l'exercice de monter a cheval.
[...] Le tout enrichy de grandes figures en taille douce, representant les vrayes & naïfves actions des hommes & des chevaux en tous les airs, & maneiges, courses de bague...ensemble les figures des brides, les plus necessaires à cet usage, desseignees & gravees par Crispian de Pas le jeune.
Paris, Pierre Rocolet, 1627
Antoine de Pluvinel, 1555-1620, was one of the most famous stable masters in France and was regarded as the finest riding master of his day. In his youth he gained experience in the most famous Academies in Italy, before being brought back to France by the Master of Horse to Charles IX. Having served under the last of the Valois Kings of France he was given control of Grandes Ecuries under Henri IV and was made a gentleman of the Chamber and Deputy Governor to the Dauphin. In 1594 Pluvinel founded his own Academie in Paris where horsemanship and mathematics were taught.
Folio (38.5 x 26 cm); engraved frontispiece Louis XIII, double-page engraved title dated 1629 (as in the second edition), printed title dated 1627 (second edition), divsion de tout l'oeuvre leaf, au Roy leaf, engraved portrait of Pluvinel engraved portrait of Menou with verse beneath and privilege du Roy to verso, 207 pp divided into three parts (1-70; 71-115, 117-207) as in the first edition, 58 double-page engraved plates mostly by de Passe, short splits to a few folds (plates 12, 14, 22, 35, 40), plate 36 with longer split into image, crease to plate 3, occasional trivial spotting or staining; nineteenth century mottled calf gilt, covers ruled in gilt, spine in six compartments, morocco lettering-piece to second, others gilt, lightly rubbed, raised bands, all edges gilt, a very good example.
Cf. Dejager 166 & 167; Cf Menessier, II, 329-330; Cf. Mellon/Podeschi 21.
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