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One of the best known treatises on tea, coffee and chocolate of the seventeenth century

BLEGNY, Nicolas de.
Le bon usage du the' du caffe' et du chocolat pour la preservation & pour la guerison des maladies.

With engraved frontispiece by Bouchet and 12 full-page engraved plates by Bouchet and Johann Hainzelmann, woodcut head-pieces and initials.

Lyon, Thomas Amaulry, 1687. 8vo. Contemporary brown calf, spine gilt in compartments with title lettered in gold. With engraved frontispiece by Bouchet and 12 full-page engraved plates by Bouchet and Johann Hainzelmann, woodcut head-pieces and initials. (24), 120, 131-226, 219-357, (5) pp.

One of the three issues of the first (and only) edition, all published in 1687, of this beautifully illustrated publicity volume advocating the health benefits of tea, coffee and chocolate. Two of these issues were printed in Paris. According to Hünersdorf & Hasenkamp the Lyon edition (our copy) may have preceded the Paris issues, as the approbation granted to Amaulry at Lyons appears in all of them.
Nicolas de Blegny (1652-1722) was the unscrupulous Versailles court physician who commercially exploited the fashion for coffee by promoting the drink as a universal cure. The book was an immediate success and it remains one of the best known French treatises on the subject of this period. There may have been a German translation (see Zedler, Lexicon universale IV, p. 545).
The frontispiece of a Chinese plucking the leaves of a tea-tree and another one drinking tea, has the imprint Lyon, Thomas Amaulry, engraved underneath. After the title-page (p. (3)), dedication to all the physicians of Paris (p. (5-14)), Avertissement (p. (15-18)), Avis (p. (19)), Approbation, signed by Falconet, Lyon, 18 June 1686 and Privilege for Thomas Amaulry, signed by Angot, Paris, "Achevé d'imprimer pour la premiere fois le 15. Fevrier 1687" (p. (20-23)), follow the three parts on tea, coffee and chocolate. The part on tea (p. 1-85) is illustrated with two plates: one is mounted and is a reversed copy of the frontispiece, the other, signed by J. Hainzelman, shows different (Chinese) teapots and chafing dishes; part 2 is on coffee (p. 87-191) and is illustrated with six plates, including illustrations of the coffee tree, coffee machines, coffee pots, and two sets of porcelain coffee cups, each including a centre bowl; part 3 on chocolate (p. 192-300) has four plates of the cacao tree and nuts, and various tools for making chocolate; part 4 (p. 301-357) contains the description of the plates, various new medical uses and a new method to purify and perfume the air, recently invented by the author; with a Table of content at the end.

Good copy, with some nineteenth-century annotations on endpapers.- (Some browning and foxing; binding rubbed, gold on spine damaged).

Hünersdorf & Hasenkamp, Coffee (2002), p. 141; Bitting, p. 44; Vicaire 97 (note); Wellcome II, p. 180.

Related Subjects: 17th Century Coffee & Tea

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