Benedetti, Diaria de bello Carolino, facsimile manuscript on vellum, [Paris, 19th century], Thouvenin binding

Benedetti, Alessandro. Diaria de bello Carolino. [Venice: Aldo Manuzio, after 27 August 1496 (i.e. France, early nineteenth century)]

This meticulous pen facsimile of the Aldine edition of Alessandro Benedetti’s Diary of the Caroline War (see lot 185) was written for the Parisian bookseller Charles Chardin (1842-1826). It appeared along with four other facsimiles of entire Aldine editions in a sale conducted in 1824 upon Chardin’s retirement. The auctioneers, Debure frères, mention in the catalogue preface the bookseller’s habit of having missing pages in his Aldines and Elseviers copied in pen and ink, also whole books that he could not procure, and they identify the writer of these facsimiles as “Fyot”. One of the Aldines copied whole (lot 1335, Musaeus, see List below), and copies of the Aldine catalogues of 1498, 1503, and 1513, and 1503 Monitum (together in lot 2697), are described by the sale cataloguer as “très bien executé, par Fyot”. This “Fyot” also “perfected” for Chardin two copies of the 1499 Aldine Dioscorides (lots 805-806) and a copy of the 1465 Fust & Schoeffer Liber sextus Decretalium (lot 463). Ten manuscripts in the sale, some “en caractères d’imprimerie,” all on vellum, are likewise credited to “Fyot” (lots 780, 1610, 1615-1616, 1675-1676, 1679, 1709, 1937, 2581).

On a visit to Paris some years previously, Dibdin had seen similar books, and he recorded his suspicion of Chardin’s motive for commissioning them:

“There is another oddity about this courteous and venerable bibliopolist. He has a great passion for making his Alduses perfect by means of manuscript; and I must say, that supposing this plan to be a good one, he has carried it into execution in a surprisingly perfect manner: for you can scarcely, by candle-light, detect the difference between what is printed and what is executed with a pen. I think it was the whole of the Scholia attached to the Aldine Dioscorides, in folio [1824 sale, lots 805-806], and a great number of leaves in the Grammatical Institutes of Urbanus, of 1497, 4to. with several other smaller volumes, which I saw thus rendered perfect: - How any scribe can be sufficiently paid for such toil, is to me inconceivable: and how it can answer the purpose of any bookseller so to complete his copies, is also equally unaccountable: for be it known, that good M. Chardin leaves you to make the discovery of the MS. portion; and when you have made it, - he innocently subjoins - ‘Oui, Monsieur, n’est il pas beau?’” (Dibdin, A bibliographical, antiquarian and picturesque tour (London 1821), II, p.402).

Two calligraphers named Fyot are known, mentioned sometimes as “Les frères Fyot”. The elder, F.F. Fyot (François-Florent), must have already acquired a reputation when in 1770 he wrote “Fête donnée à Chilly,” a record of theatrical performances in celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin and Marie-Antoinette, signing it on the title “F.F. Fyot scrip. Cal., 1770” before it was placed in a sumptuous mosaic binding and became a souvenir for the newlyweds (Aylesbury, Waddesdon Manor, Acc. No. 905). Another manuscript signed and inscribed with the same date 1770 is Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms 162.

The latest of his signed and dated manuscripts may be “Origine de la Monarchie française, ou abrégé chronologique des rois de France”, inscribed “F.F. Fyot Ecrivain calamo Exaravit mense Augusti 1783” (Pierre Bergé, Livres anciens & modernes, Paris, 27 February 2003, lot 61). A document written that year states his address: “Ecrit et dessine a la plume, par F.F. Fyot ecrivain en lettres d’impression rue du Four St-Germain, maison du sieur Billardin Md Mercier, entre la Grille du Marché et la Porte de la Foire au 4e sur le devant 178” (Répertoire general et méthodique de la Librairie Morgand et Fatout, Paris 1882, item 3475).

The earliest signed work of J.S. Fyot, known as “Fyot jeune,” appears to be the “Précis historique de la marine royale de France” signed on the title “J.S. Fyot le jeune” and dated 1777, executed for Antoine de Sartine, comte d’Albi (Anderson Galleries, Cortlandt Bishop sale, New York, 14-15 November 1938, lot 1787). The latest is perhaps the “Catalogue de la collection des Elzeviers” signed “Paris, J.S. Fyot scripsit, 1816,” supposedly a catalogue of Chardin’s collection (Jérôme Bignon sale, Paris, 8 January-12 February 1849, lot 3247; Charles Pieters sale, Ghent, 23-27 May 1864, lot 923). No biographical information exists for either brother, apart from Charles Nodier’s doubtful claim, made in 1829, that Fyot (referred to in the singular) had died impoverished “on a bed of straw” (Mélanges tirés d’une petite bibliothèque (Paris 1829), p.75).

The copies figurée sur vélin in caractères d’impression were necessarily left unsigned and undated, and on present knowledge it seems impossible to attribute our manuscript to one or the other; possibly, the brothers worked together, as an atelier. The greatest consumer of their pen facsimiles was Alexandre Martineau de Soleinne (1784-1842). When his Bibliothèque dramatique was sold in 1843, the cataloguer Paul Lacroix was able to discriminate somehow between work executed by “Fyot aîné” (lots I, 585, 593, 632, 684, 721), by “Fyot jeune” (I, 538, 563, 574, 579; V/1 289), and by “Fyot” (27 lots). Similar distinctions were drawn when the library of Émile Baudelocque was sold in 1850.

Aldine facsimiles in the Chardin stock

(a)   Bembo, De Aetna (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, February 1495-1496), sale 1824, lot 2090 (“m. bl. dent. tab. Copie figurée sur Vélin, d’un opuscule très Rare, consistant en 30 feuillets.”)

(b)   Alessandro Benedetti, Diaria de Bello Carolino (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, after 27 August 1496); the volume here offered for sale

c) Dioscorides (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, July 1499), sale 1824, lot 805 (“m. bl. tabis. Reliure de la plus grande richesse. Les dix feuillets de scholies, qui manquent presque toujours, sont manuscrits et très bien exécutés”)

(d) Dioscorides (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, July 1499), sale 1824, lot 806 (“In-fol. m. r. dent. très belle reliure. Lepremier Feuillet du texte et les dix feuillets de scholies sont manuscrits”)

(e) Niccolò Leoniceno, Libellus de Epidemia, quam vulgo morbum Gallicum vocant (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, June 1497), sale 1824, lot 900 (“m. r. dent. tabis. Copie figurée sur Velin, contenant 28 feuillets.”); now in the Bibliotheca Brookeriana (to be offered in a future sale)

(f)  Aldo Manuzio, Institutionum grammaticarum libri quatuor (Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, December 1514), sale 1824, lot 1098 (“m. bl. dent. tabis. Le dernier feuillet, contenant la souscription, et les 20 de l’appendix sont manuscrits. Ils imitent parfaitement l’imprimé. Ce volume est de plus raccommodé en plusieurs endroits.”)

(g) [Aldo Manuzio], Libri graeci impressi (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, after 1 October 1498) – [Aldo Manuzio], Aldus Studiosus S. Librorum & graecorum & latinorum nomina… (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 22 June 1503) – [Aldo Manuzio, third catalogue] (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 24 November 1513) – [Aldo Manuzio], Aldi Monitum in Lugdunenses typographos (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 16 March 1503), sale 1824, lot 2697

(h) Musaeus, Opusculum de Herone et Leandro [in Greek and Latin] (Venice: Aldo Manuzio, [before November 1495 (Greek); 1497-1498 (Latin)], sale 1824, lot 1335 (“m. bl. dent. doublé de moire d’argent. Manuscript figuré sur Vélin, très bien executé, par Fyot.”), now New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke MS 534

4to (199 x 135 mm). Manuscript in ink on vellum, 24-25 lines. collation: a-h⁸ i⁶: 70 leaves (last two leaves blank).

binding: Parisian straight-grained blue morocco by Thouvenin (probably dating to before 1820) (210 x 145 mm), richly tooled in gilt and blind with small red onlays in corners, spine similarly gilt in compartments with gilt title and imprint "Venetiis Aldus 1497," signed by Thouvenin at foot of spine, gilt edges, morocco and pink watered silk doublures with similar gilt decoration, pink watered silk endleaves, two blank vellum flyleaves at front of volume, in modern green velvet drop- backed box. (Upper hinge broken, upper joint cracked.)

provenance: Charles Chardin (1742-1826), sale, Debure frères, Paris, 9 February-22 March 1824, lot 2445 ("m. bl. dent. tab. dent. Superbe reliure. Manuscrit figurée sur Vélin, d'un livre très rare"). acquisition: Purchased from Bibliopathos, Verona, 2020.