VAUZELLES (Mathieu de). Traicté des Péages. composed by H. M - Lot 35

VAUZELLES (Mathieu de). Traicté des Péages. composed by H. Matthieu de Vauzelles, docteur ès droits & advocat du Roy au Parlement de Dombes (...). Lyon, Jean de Tournes, 1550. One volume in-4, 19th-century red half-chagrin with corners, (4) ff. 208 pp. the last unencrypted. Slight foxing, discreet restoration to title page. Very rare first edition, beautifully printed by Jean de Tournes with large initials on a riddled background. The author indicates that he composed this book during the harvest of 1549 at Millery (on his estate south of Lyon). "This book is full of for belles & doctes recherches. Il florissoit à Lyon audit year 1549". There is a poem by Maurice Scève in the original edition, entitled "Maurice Scève en grâce de si charitable et vertueuse œuvre de l'auteur". The basis of this work is the abolition, in 1547 by Henri II, of all the tolls created over the last 100 years on the Saône and Rhône rivers, which benefited the landowners of these two rivers. The Traité des péages itself is followed by 3 documents: letters from Henri II to the Parlement de Dombes; a ruling on the subject by the Parlement de Paris in June 1549; and a bull from Pope Sixtus VI in June 1486, granting indulgence to the benefactors of the Hôtel-Dieu. Nouvellet, 1891 sale, no. 479: "This is one of the rarest works among those concerning the history of Lyonnais, Beaujolais and Dombes...". Mathieu de Vauzelles (1490-1561), juriconsultant magistrate, alderman of Lyon and avocat-général du Roi au Parlement de Dombes, friend of Maurice Scève. After studying law in Pavia, he married Claudine Scève, one of Maurice Scève's sisters. He succeeded their father as juge-mage [jurisconsult]. A patron of Latin and French poets, who often celebrated him in their epigrams, he himself composed poems: the piece on hair in the "Blasons du corps féminin" is by him. Mathieu de Vauzelles had two brothers, one of whom [Jean de Vauzelles, prior of Montrottier] was Maître des requêtes to Marguerite de Navarre. From the library of Justin Godart, Lyonnais, with heraldic ex libris vignette.