Les Subtiles Fables D'Esope, Lyon Mathieu Husz, 1486

Abstract

Here is an unusual piece of work. It is unstitched as issued and mostly unopened. Its paper covers are torn at the spine. After the colored frontispiece (from a 13th-century Lyon Isopet manuscript), there are 208 black-and-white woodcut illustrations, very much in the tradition of Steinhöwel. The introduction identifies the focus of this work as the reception of the work of Julien Macho, who first translated Steinhöwel's work into French in 1480 in Lyon. After the introduction there is a very useful list of all the illustrations of fables in the work, starting with those in the life of Aesop. For the extravagantes and other later sections of Macho's work, this list also gives the story for less well known fables. After 48, there are four inserted plates, each containing one or more manuscript illustrations for Aesop and/or the fables. There follow--as I understand--the 1486 Husz edition's 192 woodcuts, two to a page, without the texts of the fables. Many have a number and/or a title over the woodcut. There is a tear on 95-96. These are all in the full uncut sheets, four pages (and thus eight woodcuts, since there is one on each side of the page) to a sheet. Dalbanne and E. Droz offer a study of the woodcuts, including sixteen further illustrations for comparison. There follows a very handy contrast of various woodcuts from Lyon with those in Steinhöwel's edition. At the very back is a list of fables and illustrations, comparing the Husz 1486 edition with Phillippe and Reinhard's 1480 and Husz et Schabeler's 1484 editions. Do I read this work correctly to indicate that the original Macho edition had no illustrations for the life of Aesop?