[Peddling]. Le Miroir du Pêcheur. Besançon, Vacherand Tissot - Lot 25

[Peddling]. Le Miroir du Pêcheur. Besançon, Vacherand Tissot, no date [ca . 1820]. In-12, 23 pp. 2 full-page woodcuts at head and tail, and 6 large woodcuts in the text. Red morocco, ornate smooth spine, black morocco t.p., large gilded iron in the center of the boards in a gilded floral semé, framed by a double gilded fillet with spandrels, gilded roulette on the edges (Contemporary binding). Rare Besançon edition. A pencil note attributes it to Father François MATHEROT, a zealous preacher and Capuchin friar from Dole. This little booklet, compiled around 1820 from the Speculum, the Ars bene moriendi and the Biblia pauperum, was a real success as a peddler. It is illustrated with Les Souffrances à venir en six sujets, 6 bois gravés (6 woodcuts) peddled in the missions for two and a half centuries, whose author is said to be a certain le NOBLETZ, born in Plonguerneau, Brittany, on September 29, 1577, and who died in Le Conquet, at the age of seventy-five, in the odor of sanctity. They are generally known as Père MAUNOIR's images, because this missionary Father of the Society of Jesus, who continued le NOBLETZ's work for many years, used these images to explain the truths he preached to the people. The full-page woodcuts feature a meditating skeleton in the header and Christ on the Cross in the tail. In this new edition, the Canticles have been replaced by those taken from the Marseilles Canticles. From the library of Guy BECHTEL, Doctor of History, author of numerous books on the mores of ancient France, and particularly of the 16th century (La Sorcière et l'Occident; La Chair, le diable et le confesseur), and of an authoritative Gutenberg, crowned by the Académie française; with his engraved bookplate. Head woodcut rubbed, with a small hole affecting the framing, internally quite fresh; traces of an ex-libris to the lower counterplate. Rare, elegantly bound publication.