Books and Manuscripts

Apollonius Rhodius
Interpretatio antiqua ac perutilis in Apollonii rhodii Argonautica
(Paris: Jacques Bogard for the widow of Conrad Neobar [Edmée Tousan]), 1541. 12mo. 152 unnumbered leaves. Text in Greek. Neobar's device printed on title-page and verso of final leaf. Full crushed tan morocco, red morocco spine label, stamped in gilt; all edges trimmed; marbled endpapers; Chatsworth book-plate on front paste-down; old inscription on front blank, same leaf starting; scattered soiling and darkening to text leaves; scattered faint marginalia; short closed tear in fore-edge, γ2. 

Rare edition of Apollo of Rhodes's Argonautica, finely printed in Greek type by Jacque Bogard, second husband of printer Edmée Tousan. Tousan's first husband, Conrad Neobar, was appointed the first Royal Greek printer by Françis I in 1538. Neobar printed only a handful of books in his lifetime, and following his death in May 1540, Edmée took charge of his press and printed several Greek texts in 1540 using her late husband's printer's device and type. Later, in 1541, she married Bogard, who was a student of her uncle, the scholar Jacques Toussain. Bogard was already a well respected figure in Parisian book circles, having been a proof reader for several publishing outfits, and had worked in the printing firm of Charlotte Guillard, one of the first female printers in Paris.