Author: [MORAES CABRAL, Francisco de and Jacques VINCENT (translator)].
Title: Histoire du preux, vaillant et tres-victorieux chevallier Palmerin d'Angleterre, fils du roy Dom Edoard, contenant plusieurs faits d'armes & amours, & les estranges adventures par luy mises à fin.Paris, chez Michel Sonnius (colophon part 2: Jean d'Ongois), 1574. 2 parts in 1 volume. Small 8vo. With a woodcut printer's device on the title page of the first part, a typographical woodcut vignette on the title page of the second part, numerous decorated woodcut initials, woodcut headpieces, and vignettes in the text. Contemporary gold and blind tooled brown calf.
Description: [8], 346; [6], 280 ll.One of the rarest French editions of a popular chivalric romance. This work is the fourth of the Palmerin romances, and is sometimes considered the best. It deals with the exploits and loves of Palmerin of England, descendant of Palmerin d'Olive, emperor of Constantinople, who is the protagonist of the first work in the cycle. The present French edition is very rare, as we have not been able to trace any other copies in sales records. The universal short title catalogue (USTC) only records this edition in two libraries. Interestingly, both the USTC and Pettegree & Walsby list this edition as a folio, but the catalogue entries of the two libraries list it as an octavo.The Palmerin cycle consists of fourteen different works, written between 1511 and 1598 by various Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian authors, and was highly inspired by the popular Amadis de Gaul. The Spanish cycle, which was the first, consists of three works: Palmerin d'Olive (1511) and Primaléon (1512), written by Fransisco Vázquez, and Platir (1533), by an anonymous author. The present work, which is the fourth part of the cycle, consists of two books. They were likely written by Fransisco de Moraes Cabral (ca. 1500-1572) in Portuguese, and are the first non-Spanish Palmerin romances. They were first published in 1547 and 1548 and are a continuation of Primaléon. They narrate the adventures of Palmerin of England and his twin brother Floriano del Desierto, grandsons of Palmerin d'Olive, who are stolen after their births and raised elsewhere. After numerous adventures, their identity is revealed, and Palmerin becomes the new emperor of Constantinople.The work was translated into French by Jacques Vincent (16th century). His translation was first published in 1552. A second edition already appeared in 1553, and four more followed in 1574. Vicent's translation was used for both the Italian and English translations. The Palmerin romances inspired many subsequent authors, even outside the Romance language areas, among them the Dutch playwright Bredero, whose Rodderick ende Alphonsus was published in 1616. With the bookplate of Albert Natural mounted on the front free flyleaf, a description from a previous seller underneath, a later ownership entry ("Heningham) repeatedly on the title page of the first part, in the margins of some of the leaves, and the final blank. The edges and corners of the boards are somewhat scuffed, the boards are slightly scratched. Occasionally (water)stained, annotations in some of the margins, the corners of leaf 31 and 160 in part 2 are torn, the final free end paper is torn, lacking both pastedowns, which reveals the medieval manuscript fragment used for the spine. Otherwise in good condition.l NUC (3 copies); Pettegree & Walsby 40410 (listed as a folio); USTC 61697 (2 copies, listed as a folio); cf. Brunet IV, 333 ("Édition rare et fort recherchée"); STC French p. 335 (other ed.).

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