Preview of the first image of Guillaume Rouillé - Promptuaire des medalles des plus renommees personnes qui ont esté depuis le co.

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Are you interested in this item? This item is up for auction at Catawiki. Please click on "respond to advert" (orange button) to get redirected to the Catawiki website. Catawiki’s goal is to make special objects universally available. Our weekly auctions feature thousands of unusual, rare, and exceptional objects you won’t find in just any store. To Lyon, Par Guillaume Roville, 1577. (24 x 17 cm). Collation: [2], 4 leaves, pages 5-172, [4] pages (next a8, b4, c-m8) ; 300 pages, plus 297-311, [9] pages (sig. aa-ss8, tt10, vv8) : Illustrations; 4th (only sheet 51-52 of the second part is missing, which was torn out, otherwise, complete work)

Good condition but with problems: Worn edges on the first leaves, including small cuts and some small gaps, some stains of different nature but few, mostly clean leaves. Surely original binding and with a sheet of parchment that covers the binding on the inside, probably from an incunabulum or medieval book. Board on wood covered with a velvety material with some wear on the upper part of the spine.

Scarce work, only one copy consigned in the CCPB edition of 1553.


"Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum" is an iconographic book by Guillaume Rouillé. This was published in Lyon, France, in 1553. The work includes portraits designed like medals, and short biographies of many notable figures. Julian Sharman, author of "The library of Mary Queen of Scots", said that the work "is not one of much numismatic interest". He further said: "This work has been pronounced to be one of the wonders of wood engraving early."2 The book includes a total of 950 portraits. Many of the figures portrayed are of English origin.3 The images begin with Adam and Eve. In the preface, the editor praises his work. (source: wikipedia)

Second edition, its commercial genius (of the author) is the Promptuario de las Medallas. This work, published for the first time in 1553, is a kind of universal biography of illustrious men, from Adam and Eve to Juana de Albert and Enrique II. Each short notice about a famous person is illustrated with medallion portraits drawn by George Reverdy, Corneille de la Haye, and other master engravers. Beautiful engravings, moreover, Didot in his Essay (p. 245) praises the artistic character of the illustrations and says that we see there "the woodcut trying to fight with the gravure to capture the model of the figures by means of a work of size to often crossed". The second French edition (1577) is more original than the first because Guillaume Rouillé had the idea of adding 142 new notices that give pride of place to his contemporaries. Not just any: those that appear in the catalog of your library: The notice of the lawyer François Duaren is a good example. This illustrious stranger, who would have advanced legal science, according to Rouillé, has above all the merit of having been published by RARETE in good condition despite the defects indicated (very good condition despite the defects indicated). (Source: AbeBooks)



Guillaume Rouillé (Latin: Gulielmus Rovillium; c. 1518 – 1589), also called Roville [1] or Rovillius, was one of the most prominent humanist booksellers and printers in 16th-century Lyon. He invented the paperback format called the Sextodecimo, printed with sixteen sheets per folio sheet, half the size of the Octave format, and published many works on history and poetry, as well as medicine, in addition to his useful compilations and manuals. [two]

Rouillé was born in Tours. Although French, he apprenticed at the Venetian printing house of Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari and maintained his connections with Venice as a source of texts after his arrival in Lyon around 1543. [3]

Among his works is Barthélemy Aneau's French translation of Andrea Alciato's pioneering book of emblems, which was part of a major publishing company in Lyon by the team of Guillaume Rouillé and his printer Macé Bonhomme, 1549, which extended to translations in Italian and Spanish. [4] Rouillé also published print books by Paolo Giovio and Gabriele Simeoni. [5] Another work of iconography was the useful compilation of types of portraits from Antiquity, Promptuarii iconum insigniorum à seculo hominum, subiectis eorum vitis, per compendium ex probatissimis autoribus desumptis (First and second parts, 1553, etc.) in which each medal-shaped portrait head was followed by a short biography. [6] Later he was one of the four printers who published the "Printers of Lyon tribute to Miguel de Villanueva" edition of a Materia Medica, in homage to his friend Miguel "Servetus", executed for heresy. [7] [8] French editions followed, Promptuaire des Medalles des plus renommées personnes..., 1581, etc. His Sententiae omnes undiquaque selectissimae, 1555, collected moral maxims from the works of Aristotle.

On their covers, their brand was prominently displayed: an eagle atop a globe on a pedestal, flanked by serpents with intertwined tails. His heirs continued the printing press until the 17th century.

Rouillé died in Lyon.

(source: wikipedia) 67547261

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