Revised edition, the last lifetime revision, of Guarini’s immensely popular pastoral tragicomedy, this copy with an emotive provenance.
 
Quarto. Bound without engraved portrait of the author and without the second part comprising the Compendio della poesia tragicomica (as often). Bound in seventeenth-century red morocco. Manuscript corrections, additions, and annotations to c. 10 pp, mostly in Act 1, with various verses crossed out. Contemporary ownership inscription of Claude Énoch Virey to title page; and also inscribed there by his son on behalf of his late wife, “Bonne Galoys ne morte ne tempo”.
 
A good copy, marginal loss to foot of f. 142, not affecting text, a few insignificant stains. Lacking front and rear free endpapers, and the front flyleaf, joints and spine worn, spine chipped at foot.
 
PROVENANCE: Claude-Énoch Virey, (1566–1636), ownership inscription to title page; given to his son Jean-Christophle Virey (1600-c.1663) who inscribed the title page in memory of his wife, “Bonne Galoys. Ne Morte ne Tempo”.
 
Claude-Enoch Virey was born near Chalon-Sur Saone and rose through French society in the late 16th century, becoming secretary to Henri II of Bourbon and being ennobled by Louis XIII in 1629.
 
Virey’s impressive book collection was said to contain 4,000 volumes, and in 1612 the architect Jacque Gentillatre designed a library on the first floor of the Hotel de Virey in Chalon to house the collection.
Claud-Enoch’s early books, before Louis XIII ennobled him, are in plain bindings, and bear his inscription, as in the present example: “Claud. Enoch Virey”.
 
When Claude Enoch died in 1635, the library passed to his son Jean Christophe Virey who added to his father’s collection.
 
Not only did Jean Christophe augment the collection, he also went through his father’s books, adding to them his own ownership inscription.
 
In this instance, however, he has instead added an inscription in memory of his late wife, Bonne Galoys.
 
Jean Christophe and Bonne Galoys were married in 1621 and had eight children together. She was a remarkable woman for her time. Her husband wrote of her that she “had a spirit of a philosopher in the body of a woman, and an educated and well-disciplined soul under a barbaric sky; there was never anything weak or rough in her life; all her actions had strength and skill”.
 
However, on her 45th birthday, Bonne Galoys died, leaving her husband heartbroken. Since she passed away, he wrote, “I am living alone withdrawn into myself and my discontentment, among my books and my garden”.
 
One way in which Jean Christophe sought to remember his wife was through his book collection. In part by commissioning mourning bindings in vellum, decorated with her initials and funerary urn. And in part by adding the inscription, “Bonne Galoys, ne morte ne tempo” to his books, as in the present example.