Les hieroglyphiques de Ian-Pierre Valerian, vulgairement nomme´ Pierius Autrement, commentaires des lettres et figures sacre´es des Aegyptiens & autres nations. Oeuure reduicte en cinquante huict liures, ausquels sont adjoincts deux autres

1615. VALERIAN, Ian-Pierre. Les hieroglyphiques de Ian-Pierre Valerian, vulgairement nomme´ Pierius. Autrement, commentaires des lettres et figures sacrées des Aegyptiens & autres nations… [38], 807, [75] pp., engraved title page by Léonard Gaultier, numerous small in-text woodcuts, head- and tail-pieces, initials throughout. Folio, 350 x 225 mm., bound in contemporary calf. Lyon: P. Frellon, 1615. French translation by Jean de Montlyard of this important work of symbolism and artistic iconography of the Renaissance, integrating the study of hieroglyphs with "the symbolism of mediæval lapidaries and bestiaries, and of the Physiologus ascribed to Epiphanius, a collection of symbols suggested by animals" (Praz). The volume is divided into two books. The first by Ian-Pierre Valerian (Pierio Valeriano) describes hieroglyphic meanings of all animals, and the second book - Les hieroglyphiques by Caelius Augustin Curion (Celio Augustino Curione) - concerns the symbolic meanings of effigies and portraits of gods and men. First published in Latin with incomplete text in Florence, 1556, and with complete text in Basel later that year (see R. Mortimer, Italian 16th cent., 511). This Lyon edition by Paul Frellon is "highly sought after, with a frontispiece engraved by Leonard Gaultier, a portrait and numerous hieroglyphic and emblematic figures engraved on wood" (Caillet). A rare book with OCLC listing only Syracuse, Getty,Princeton and Iowa in the US. Brunet V, 1042 ("La plus complete de toutes"). Praz, pp. 24, 225, & 521. Volkman, Bilderschriften der Renaissance (Leipzig, 1923), pp. 35-40. Olivier et al., fers 7 & 16. See Edgar Wind's Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New York, 1968), with numerous citations therein. On Paul Frellon, publisher of the volume, see Bibliography Lyonnais V, 271-285. On the library of the Collège de Clermont, cf. Histoire des bibliothèques Françaises II, pp. 60-61, with reproduction. On the royal bookbinders to Louis XIV, see Esmerian's Douze tableaux synoptiques sur la reliure au XVIIe siecle (Paris, 1973).