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Extremely rare and important devotional post-incunable: the first French edition of the lavishly illustrated 'Life of Christ' by a Carthusian monk from Antwerp

BRANTEGHEM, Guilielmus de.
La vie de nostre Seigneur Jesu Christ par figures, selon le texte des quattre evangelistes, avec toutes les evangiles epistres & propheties de toute lannee, chantee en loffice de la Messe, avec aucunes oraisons.

Full-page woodcut title: Moses with the Tables of the Law and the Descent of the Holy Ghost (115x78mm) with title and mention of the privilege in letterpress and a woodcut tail piece underneath; full-page  woodcut border with the instruments of the passion and the flagellation for the beginning of "La Passion" on p. 255; 2 full-page woodcuts: (1) the Lineage of Christ, according to Matt. 1:1-16 (111x76mm.) and (2) the Descent of the Holy Ghost, Acts 2:1-13 (113x75mm); 185 half-page woodcuts (ca. 50x70mm.): 153 in the Life of Christ, 30 in the Passion and 2 in the Table; a few blocks used twice). The woodcuts are designed, and perhaps also cut (?), by Lieven de Witte; numerous tail-pieces and 28 small vignettes representing the tetragramme and biblical quotations (Veldman & Van Schaik (1989), figs. v and 187-208), used repeatedly for filing the blank spaces (sometimes more than one tail-piece - on p. (16) even 7 - on top of each other), and many charming woodcut initials.

Full-page woodcut title: Moses with the Tables of the Law and the Descent of the Holy Ghost (115x78mm) with title and mention of the privilege in letterpress and a woodcut tail piece underneath; full-page  woodcut border with the instruments of the passion and the flagellation for the beginning of "La Passion" on p. 255; 2 full-page woodcuts: (1) the Lineage of Christ, according to Matt. 1:1-16 (111x76mm.) and (2) the Descent of the Holy Ghost, Acts 2:1-13 (113x75mm); 185 half-page woodcuts (ca. 50x70mm.): 153 in the Life of Christ, 30 in the Passion and 2 in the Table; a few blocks used twice). The woodcuts are designed, and perhaps also cut (?), by Lieven de Witte; numerous tail-pieces and 28 small vignettes representing the tetragramme and biblical quotations (Veldman & Van Schaik (1989), figs. v and 187-208), used repeatedly for filing the blank spaces (sometimes more than one tail-piece - on p. (16) even 7 - on top of each other), and many charming woodcut initials.

Full-page woodcut title: Moses with the Tables of the Law and the Descent of the Holy Ghost (115x78mm) with title and mention of the privilege in letterpress and a woodcut tail piece underneath; full-page  woodcut border with the instruments of the passion and the flagellation for the beginning of "La Passion" on p. 255; 2 full-page woodcuts: (1) the Lineage of Christ, according to Matt. 1:1-16 (111x76mm.) and (2) the Descent of the Holy Ghost, Acts 2:1-13 (113x75mm); 185 half-page woodcuts (ca. 50x70mm.): 153 in the Life of Christ, 30 in the Passion and 2 in the Table; a few blocks used twice). The woodcuts are designed, and perhaps also cut (?), by Lieven de Witte; numerous tail-pieces and 28 small vignettes representing the tetragramme and biblical quotations (Veldman & Van Schaik (1989), figs. v and 187-208), used repeatedly for filing the blank spaces (sometimes more than one tail-piece - on p. (16) even 7 - on top of each other), and many charming woodcut initials.

Full-page woodcut title: Moses with the Tables of the Law and the Descent of the Holy Ghost (115x78mm) with title and mention of the privilege in letterpress and a woodcut tail piece underneath; full-page  woodcut border with the instruments of the passion and the flagellation for the beginning of "La Passion" on p. 255; 2 full-page woodcuts: (1) the Lineage of Christ, according to Matt. 1:1-16 (111x76mm.) and (2) the Descent of the Holy Ghost, Acts 2:1-13 (113x75mm); 185 half-page woodcuts (ca. 50x70mm.): 153 in the Life of Christ, 30 in the Passion and 2 in the Table; a few blocks used twice). The woodcuts are designed, and perhaps also cut (?), by Lieven de Witte; numerous tail-pieces and 28 small vignettes representing the tetragramme and biblical quotations (Veldman & Van Schaik (1989), figs. v and 187-208), used repeatedly for filing the blank spaces (sometimes more than one tail-piece - on p. (16) even 7 - on top of each other), and many charming woodcut initials.

Full-page woodcut title: Moses with the Tables of the Law and the Descent of the Holy Ghost (115x78mm) with title and mention of the privilege in letterpress and a woodcut tail piece underneath; full-page  woodcut border with the instruments of the passion and the flagellation for the beginning of "La Passion" on p. 255; 2 full-page woodcuts: (1) the Lineage of Christ, according to Matt. 1:1-16 (111x76mm.) and (2) the Descent of the Holy Ghost, Acts 2:1-13 (113x75mm); 185 half-page woodcuts (ca. 50x70mm.): 153 in the Life of Christ, 30 in the Passion and 2 in the Table; a few blocks used twice). The woodcuts are designed, and perhaps also cut (?), by Lieven de Witte; numerous tail-pieces and 28 small vignettes representing the tetragramme and biblical quotations (Veldman & Van Schaik (1989), figs. v and 187-208), used repeatedly for filing the blank spaces (sometimes more than one tail-piece - on p. (16) even 7 - on top of each other), and many charming woodcut initials.



Antwerp, Adriaan Kempe de Bouchot & Matthieu Crom, 1539. 8vo. Modern violet morocco, spine ribbed and lettered in gold, gilt lines on binding edges and inside covers, marbled endpapers, g.e. Full-page woodcut title: Moses with the Tables of the Law and the Descent of the Holy Ghost (115x78mm) with title and mention of the privilege in letterpress and a woodcut tail piece underneath; full-page  woodcut border with the instruments of the passion and the flagellation for the beginning of "La Passion" on p. 255; 2 full-page woodcuts: (1) the Lineage of Christ, according to Matt. 1:1-16 (111x76mm.) and (2) the Descent of the Holy Ghost, Acts 2:1-13 (113x75mm); 185 half-page woodcuts (ca. 50x70mm.): 153 in the Life of Christ, 30 in the Passion and 2 in the Table; a few blocks used twice). The woodcuts are designed, and perhaps also cut (?), by Lieven de Witte; numerous tail-pieces and 28 small vignettes representing the tetragramme and biblical quotations (Veldman & Van Schaik (1989), figs. v and 187-208), used repeatedly for filing the blank spaces (sometimes more than one tail-piece - on p. (16) even 7 - on top of each other), and many charming woodcut initials. (16), 1-128, 119-294, (176) pp.- Collation: +8, A-Z8, a-g8 (248 lvs.).

Extremely rare first and only lavishly illustrated edition of the French translation of the Dutch original (Dat leven ons heeren Christi Jesu, printed by Matthieu Crom for Adriaan Kempe de Bouchout in Antwerp in 1537; NK III, nr. 4202) by the Carthusian Guilielmus de Branteghem (Alost, 1480 - Antwerp, ca. 1537). A Latin edition (Jesu Christi vita, was printed in the same year by the same printers, leaving out 4 of the woodcuts (Hollstein, vol. 53, Lieven de Witte, nrs. 48. 60, 62 and 105). The second Dutch edition appeared already in the next year, 1538, followed by the first edition in French, to which our copy belongs. In this French edition are two blocks lacking (Hollstein, nrs. 67 and 100) that are included in the first Dutch edition. Blocks 23, 56 and 183 are used twice (resp. p. 43, 160 and 156). What Hollstein doesn't mention, however, is the fact that block 35 comes (more properly!) after nr. 45, and that there is one new block after nr. 133 on p. 211 of a besieged town, not mentioned by Hollstein! It is a woodcut illustrating 'Jesus pleure sus Jerusalem'; it fact, however. it is an illustration of the capture of Jerusalem, a woodcut earlier used in Branteghem's Historien ende profecien (1535), copied after an illustraton in the Biblische Historien by Hans Sebald Beham (Frankfurt 1533). The text of our edition is enlarged, however, with the prayers which were added after the different episodes.
Lieven de Witte (ca. 1503 - 1578) was a painter, designer of stained glass windows and book illustrator, who sympathized with the Reformation. He was fined several times, f.e. in 1528 and 1540. His name as the designer of the woodcuts in this book is known from an acrostic by Georgius Cassander printed in the Latin edition: the first letters form the name 'Levinus de VVitte Gandensis'. It is very exceptional that the name of the illustrator is made known in the book containing his illustrations. For further details on his life, see Veldman & Van Schaik, p. 22-24.
Willem van Branteghem was born in Alost ca. 1480 and professed early in the 16th century in the Carthusian monastery at Ghent. During the years 1527-30 he was a monk in the Carthusian monastery nearby Delft and from there he returned to Antwerp where he died with the Carthusians in the same year he published his Dutch original of this Life of Christ (1537), the most lavishly illustrated devotional book he wrote.

Our French edition is roughly divided in three parts:
After (a) the 'Copy du privilege', dated Brussels, 17 December 1537 (p. (2-3)), (b) the very interesting dedication letter (and preface) by Guillaume Branteghem to his 'Cousin Adrian de Heetuel(d), Receveur (steward) de Zelandre', dated Ghent, 25 December 1537, in which he explains that he has written the book for devotional reasons and has it extensively illustrated especially also for the illitterates (p. (4-15)), and (c) the chapter  'Leternelle incarnation de Christ, venant du pere', preceded by the tetragram vignette follow:
- (1) a Gospel-harmony, the life of Christ according to the four Evangelists with added prayers (p. 1-254): beginning with 'La generation de Jesu Christ'  and further following accurately the descriptions by the four Evangelists of the different episodes of Christ's life in chronological order, which are all illustrated with the 153 woodcuts. 'Never in the history of art is the contents of the four Gospels so accurately and correctly pictured as in these woodcuts' (Prof. Veldman).
- (2) 'La Passion': the history of the passion of Christ, also according to the four Evangelists and illustrated with 30 woodcuts, and
- (3) the 'Table pour les Epistres & Evangiles, qui sont leutes & chantees en leglise au long de lannee, avec aucunes propheties', a Lectionary containing the texts to be read during the Mass (a) from the first Sunday of the Advent to the 25th Sunday after Trinity (p. (1-141)); = the Temporal) with 2 half-page and one full-page woodcuts and (b) read during the days of the Saints, the Sanctuale (p. (142-175)).
Very good copy of this rare devotional work.- (Some of the pagination numbers shaved; two annotations in ink on the title, one a faded ownership's entry, dated 1674 (' ... Congr. S. Marci (?)' ).
NK 490 (3 copies: Brussels, RL and London, BL & St. Paul's); Adams B-1829; STCDutch, p.33; not in Machiels; Hollstein 53, p. 231-280 (Lieven de Witte, nrs. 1-188, all illustr.); Funk, p. 286;  Delen. Hist. de la grav., p. 55; Rouzet, Dict., p. 111; Biogr. Nat. de Belg. 16, cols. 12-5;  Nat. Biogr. woordenb. 6, cols. 50-1; I. Veldman & K. van Schaik, Verbeelde boodschap. De illustraties van Lieven de Witte bij 'Dat leven ons Heeren' (1537) (1989), esp. p. 17-21, with illustrations of all the woodcuts, including the vignettes and tail-pieces.

Related Subjects: 16th Century  Devotion  Illustrated Books  Low Countries  Post Incunabula  Woodcuts 

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