(AUCTION CATALOGUE: BROCHARD, Michel).

Museum Selectum, sive Catalogus Librorum viri clariss. Michaelis Brochard, cum Indice Auctorum Alphabetico.

Woodcut printer’s device on title. xvi, 325, [42] pp. 8vo, cont. mottled calf (ends of spine a bit chipped, three corners a trifle worn), spine richly gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine (label a little chipped). Paris: G. Martin, 1729.

Michel Brochard (d. 1728 or 1729), philologist and professor of the humanities at the Collège Mazarin, was one of the most distinguished collectors of his time. He also assisted Cisternay Du Fay in the formation of his outstanding collection. This is one of the twenty-two catalogues for which Gabriel Martin provided an index. 3034 lots and priced throughout in a contemporary hand.

In Brochard’s preface to this catalogue, Martin expressly states that the collector directed in his will that it should be printed, without any change, from his own autograph MS., including his own bibliographical system; Martin only numbered the lots and compiled the index.

“The best older classified catalogues often have an index of authors and thus show the dealer’s desire to make them permanently useful…According to the preface of the Brochard catalogue (1729), the owner had given testamentary instructions requiring the auctioneer to prepare a catalogue for reference use. He retained Brochard’s classification and has added only an index of authors.”–Taylor, Book Catalogues, p. 14.

Very good copy. On the final leaf there is a list of seventeen lots and their titles which were not offered for sale, as they had been left by Brochard to his heirs. 18th-century armorial bookplate “Ex Musoeo E.P. Le Tors de Chessimont.” This was Edme Pierre Le Tors, director of the gunpowder factory at Essonne. He conducted a series of experiments with Lavoisier and Berthollet on gunpowder and accidentally blew himself up on 27 October 1788 in front of the two other scientists.

❧ Bléchet, p. 81 & p. 39–“Le philologue Michel Brochard possède une belle collection de poète français, qui se sont vendus à un prix élevé.” Grolier Club, Printed Catalogues of French Book Auctions...1643-1830, 33. Peignot, p. 85. Pollard & Ehrman no. 271.

Price: $2,750.00

Item ID: 2249