200 - MARGUERITE OF ANGOULEME. The Heptameron, or Stories of Fortunate Lovers: Tales from the Very Illustrious and Excellent Princess, Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre...

MARGUERITE OF ANGOULEME. The Heptameron, or Stories of Fortunate Lovers: Tales from the Very Illustrious and Excellent Princess, Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre... A rare Lyon edition. A fine copy in an elegant 18th-century binding. Lyon, Loys Cloquemin, 1581. 2 volumes in-16, each bound in full brown calfskin, smooth spine richly decorated with a repeated gilt design of fleurs-de-lis, cold-stamped fillet framing the covers, gilt fillet on the edges, guilloché caps, red-speckled edges. 812 pp. and 6 unnumbered folios (table of contents), initials. Bindings slightly rubbed, title page slightly browned, narrow margins, rare small foxing spots. Two folios are missing from the first volume (pp. 169–172). A rare Lyon edition based on the text by Claude Gruget. Inspired by Boccaccio’s *Decameron*, *L’Heptaméron* features ten characters stranded by a flood in the Pyrenees who tell one another a variety of stories. These stories, blending love, satire, and tragedy, depict the customs of the era and are followed by moral discussions. While the work derives its traditional title from its main structure of seven days, this edition contains an eighth day consisting of only two short stories, leaving the work unfinished upon the death of the Queen of Navarre in 1449. Handwritten bookplate on the title page and inside front cover of the second volume reading “Jehannin Aruiset,” and handwritten bookplates scrawled throughout. A fine set in 18th-century bindings with spines adorned with fleurs-de-lis in homage to the Queen of Navarre.