As a young man, de Ronsard had inherited a sizeable library from his uncle and continued to add books that in his poetry he refers to as his favourite companions and faithful friends, but his two wills make no mention of the library and its fate is unknown. A 1920s attempt to identify volumes from the library of this central figure of the French literary renaissance listed just ten books (one of them dubious) and even by 1985, the total had risen to only 15 in all – let alone signed.
During the 18th century, this volume belonged to a surgeon, Antoine Louis, and later was acquired by another poet, Pierre Louÿs.
A rare survival: a signed book from the library of Pierre de Ronsard
SOLD at £42,000 to a collector in a November 30 sale of Continental books and manuscripts held by Sotheby’s was a 1566 Lyon edition of Celsus’ De re medica from the library of France’s ‘Prince of Poets’, Pierre de Ronsard. Autograph material by de Ronsard is of the utmost rarity, with just two documents entirely in his hand recorded (both in the Bibliothèque Nationale) and ony two or three volumes bearing his signature, as this one does, remaining in private hands.
