II. THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE CATHOLIQUES ŒUVRES ET ACTES DES APOSTRES, by Simon de Greban; followed by the MYSTERE DE L'APOCALYPSE, by Louis Choquet. Printed for Arnould and Charles les Angeliers, May 27, 1541. 'On les vend en la grand salle du Palais, par Arnould et Charles les Angeliers freres.' Folio; Paris, 1541.
This work is embellished with engravings, of which only one is signed with the Lorraine cross. This one, which is on folio I recto of the Acts of the Apostles, represents the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles. It is enclosed in a border, of octavo size, and belongs to a series of engravings for a book of Hours published by Guillaume Merlin in 1548.[382] The engraver's mark is in a small circle at the left of the foot of the border. Beside it is an angel holding two shields in which are the letters G. M. (Guillaume Merlin). The frontispiece of the Acts of the Apostles has a border in which is the date 1537. The same border surrounds the frontispiece of the Mystery of the Apocalypse, but there it is without the date. This last-named portion of the volume contains 13 engravings and a border, in Tory's style, but without the Lorraine cross. One of them bears the letters P. R. There is a copy at the Bibliothèque Nationale.
III. HOURS OF THE VIRGIN, octavo, in roman type, but with the borders 'à la moderne' described on page 128, supra.
This book, printed by Olivier Mallard in 1541, was copied doubtless from the edition made by Tory about 1531, which I have been unable to examine. Mallard's edition, of which I have seen a copy on vellum, belonging to M. Émilien Cabuchet, the painter, and another on paper, consists of twenty-three octavo signatures, A to Y. The title-page reads; HORÆ IN LAUDEM BEATISSIM. VIRGINIS MARIÆ, AD USUM ROMANUM. (Here the Pot Cassé.) Parisiis, apud Oliverium Mallardum, sub signo Vasis Effracti, 1541. The last page, on which is printed a curious 'prescription against the plague,' ends thus: 'Excudebat Parisiis Oliverius Mallard, bibliopola regius, sub signo Vasis Effracti.'...
In this edition there are 16 different borders; each leaf has the same border on both recto and verso. There are also 16 of the engravings of the sixteenmo Hours of 1529, those not reproduced being nos. 1, 19 and 21 of that edition.
The word 'Rom.' printed on the first page of each signature leads me to believe that Mallard published at the same time, in the same format, an edition of Hours 'ad usum Parisianum,' but I have found no trace of such an edition.
After Olivier Mallard's death, which occurred, as I have said heretofore, in 1542, his typographical outfit seems to have been acquired by Thielman Kerver II (son of the first Thielman and Iolande Bonhomme, who lived, as did his father before him, on Rue Saint-Jacques); for he published in 1550 a book of Hours similar to that printed in 1541 by Mallard. It contains the same borders and the same drawings, but in a different arrangement. The borders have been lengthened by means of a most ungraceful addition to the side-pieces; as for the drawings in two parts, no pains has been taken to place the parts facing each other, so that their meaning would be uncertain if we had no other editions of the engravings. In fine, this book is very imperfect. It consists of twenty-two and a half signatures, A to Y. The title-page reads thus:—
HORÆ IN LAUDEM BEATISSIMÆ VIRGINIS MARIÆ AD USUM ROMANUM. (Here the mark of Thielman Kerver, with the Lorraine cross.) 'Parisiis, apud Thielmannum Kerver, vico sancti Jacobi, sub signo Cratis. M.D.L.' The book closes with the curious 'prescription' found in Olivier Mallard's edition of 1541, which is in these words: 'Approbatissima medicina contra pestem.—Recipe quantum potes de amaritudine mentis contra peccata commissa, cum vera cordis contritione, potius libram quam unciam. Hæc misceantur cum aqua lacrymarum, et facies vomitum per puram confessionem. Deinde sumas illud sacratiss. electuarium corporis Christi, et tutus eris a peste.'