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All auctions / Books, Maps & Manuscripts / TORY (Geoffroy). Champfleury. Containing the Art and Science - Lot 30
TORY (Geoffroy). Champfleury. Containing the Art and Science of the Proper and True Proportion of Attic Letters—also known as Attic Letters, and commonly called Roman Letters—proportioned according to the human body and face. Paris, Geoffroy Tory and Gilles de Gourmont, April 28, 1529. Small folio, brown morocco leather, decorated spine, three fillets on the covers, interior lace, gilt edges (Godillot). First edition of this iconic work of the French Renaissance, Geoffroy Tory’s masterpiece. A treatise on modern typography, the work is also—and above all—a passionate manifesto in favor of the French language. Conceived as early as 1523 and published twenty years before Du Bellay’s *Défense et illustration*, it is the work of a Tory deeply influenced by his travels in Italy (circa 1518–1521) and who had become a leading figure in the French publishing world. The text is, in fact, in the tradition of Vitruvius and follows in the footsteps of Alberti, da Vinci, Dürer, and Pacioli, addressing concerns central to humanism and the Renaissance. Among these concerns are the codification and promotion of vernacular languages, as well as the desire to achieve balance and harmony in writing based on mathematical proportions. In this work, Tory revitalizes the art of typography by incorporating the aesthetics, perspective, and proportions of antiquity. The work is divided into three books: the first urges the reader to “organize the French language according to certain rules for speaking elegantly in good and more proper French”; the second traces the origins of Attic letters and sets forth the principles of their construction in relation to the proportions of the human body; the third details how to execute the designs of each of the Roman capital letters. The work concludes with a series of alphabets, “a grand finale that gives it its name, the Champfleury—a term evoking Paradise, where the humanist will draw sweet nectar from Tory’s proposals” (BNF. Essentiels). The volume is richly illustrated with 116 woodcuts, 13 alphabets in various styles, and 10 numerals, some of which were designed and engraved by Tory himself, including models of intertwined or fanciful letters intended for artisans, “moralizing letters,” and several woodcuts related to the text’s allegorical nature. The most remarkable are the “French Hercules” and the “Triumph of Apollo.” Tory’s broken-pot mark appears in beautiful frames on the title page and at the end of the work. “By celebrating the perfection of ancient letters and by designing alphabets of unparalleled elegance, Tory dealt the final blow to the old Gothic alphabets and revitalized the art of typography” (Brun, *The Illustrated Book in Sixteenth-Century France*). A fine copy, elegantly bound. Acquired by Émile Rossignol in 1991.
Estimate:£17,044.7
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Estimate:
£17,044.7
Illustrated Edition "Angels & Demons" with "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown
10/02/2026
£5.28
Est: £5.3
OCT 17 | 10:00 PM
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