The history of the Italian Wars by the "French Machiavelli"
COMMINES, Philippe de. Les Memoires de Messire Philippe de Commines, Sr. d'Argenton. Derniere édition. Leiden: Chez les Elzeviers. 1648.
12mo. Late 19th-century full vellum with yapp edges, red morocco lettering-piece to spine, gilt edges; pp. [xxiv], 765, [19], with engraved title-page, woodcut initials, head-, and tailpieces; light spotting to vellum, overall an attractive, clean copy; early ownership inscription (cancelled) and later "Jean Paul Fesnim" to title; modern bookplate to front pastedown.
First Elzevir edition of Commines's celebrated contemporary account of the reign and military campaigns of Louis XI and Charles VIII of France.
Philippe de Commines (1447-1511) was a humanist chronicler and diplomat in the courts of Burgundy and France. His Mémoires was first published between 1524 and 1528, achieving immediate success with numerous reprints, and earning the unique distinction, among French-language texts, of never having gone out of print. The first part, written in the 1480s, focuses on the reign of Louis XI, particularly his rivalry with Charles the Bold, while the second part, composed in the 1490s, examines Charles VIII’s Italian campaign. Commines, who served in a diplomatic capacity under both French monarchs, devotes particular attention to the rise and fall of the Florentine preacher Girolamo Savonarola and the ultimate failure of French military and political ambitions in Italy.
Commines's "graphic style … and above all the keenness of his insight into the motives of his contemporaries, an insight undimmed by undue regard for principles of right and wrong, make this work one of the great classics of history" (Britannica). Often referred to as the "French Machiavelli", he shares affinities with the Italian political thinker, particularly in his pragmatic and unsentimental approach to power.
Willems 634; Tchemerzine III, p. 468 ("jolie édition elzévirienne très recherchée").
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