Miscellany of 5 vases

*RAVISIUS TEXTOR (Jean TIXIER de RAVISI dit). Officinae Ioannis Ravisii textoris epitome. Lyon, chez les héritiers de Sébastien Gryphe, 1560. small in-8 of 464-[5] pp., [1] bl. f., 470-[10] pp. (the last with griffin mark), 87 pp. Fawn calf, spine ribbed, double framing of triple cold fillet on covers, with gilt fleurons in spandrels and center (period binding). Worn binding with significant leather loss on spine, rubbed, corners dulled. A few light rings around the edges, otherwise good condition inside for this singular encyclopedia by Jean Tixier de Ravisi dit Ravisius Textor, a humanist professor at the College of Navarre and originally from the Nivernais region, aimed at the student public of the early 16th century. The first edition was published in Basel in 1503 - the Cornucopia, constituting the 3rd and final part, appeared in 1551 - and went through numerous editions. Rabelais and Montaigne, like generations of students, drew on these miscellanies, mocked in the 17th century as a "purveyor of epithets". It consists of thousands of quotations, facts and anecdotes, some concerning famous people (suicides, parricides, drownings, deaths by boar, crucifixion, electrocution, poisoning, "in venereo actu mortui", funeral rites, various illnesses, the blind and one-eyed, doctors and pharmacists, professions, calendars, beauties and deformities, lovers, effeminate and elegant, transvestites, incestuous, adulterers, animal lovers, learned women, games and shows, militaria, names of horses and boats, fish, customs rites, vases, dresses, heretics, exiles, soothsayers, natural miracles, poisons, astrologers, inventors, birds, animals, trees, buildings, cruel, avaricious, gluttons, drunkards, names of springs, mythology etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.)