Magnificent copy of this grand French chronicle and history of the popes in a stunning early 17th-century binding probably from the workshop of Florimond Badier, one volume rubricated in a contemporary hand. The chronicle in its present form was assembled from that of Martin Polonus (d. 1278), which ends in 1277 with the burial of John XXI. It was continued up to Urban V (1362) by Echard Verneron (Canon of Liege), and then in the second volume from the texts of 'plusiers croniqueurs', who include: Jean de Troyes, Gaguin, Jean de Montreuil and Jean Castel. Volume I remains an important source for the history of the Avignonese papacy. The second volume comprises a history of France in the period from 1399 to 1503, including the collapse (c. 1500) of the Parisian bridge where Verard's shop was located, forcing him to move to the address on colophon of vol II and giving a date ante qua non for the production of the work. The second volume is also an important historical document, for the later periods of the Hundred Years War, from the high point of the English conquest up to their expulsion from the whole of France except Calais. Martinus was Martin Strebski, born in Troppau, a Dominican friar, papal chaplain and penitentiary under Clement IV and succeeding popes, and finally archbishop of Gnesen. His 'Chronica Pontiicum et Imperatorum' is a history of the world, and was "the favourite handbook of the later Middle Ages" (Catholic Encyclopaedia). It enjoyed a broad readership and tremendous popularity. His chronicle includes the (mythical) story of the female Pope, 'Pope Joan', and it is here that name is first used. Martinus tells the story that after Leo IV (847-55) the Englishman John of Mainz occupied the papal chair. He was, it is alleged, a woman. Taken as a girl to Athens in male clothes by her lover, she made such progress in learning that she was without equal. She came to Rome, where she taught science, and attracted the attention of learned men. She enjoyed the greatest respect on account of her conduct and erudition, and was finally chosen Pope, but having become pregnant by one of her attendants ('mais Durant sa papalite elle fust engrossie de son familier'), she gave birth to a child during a procession, dying almost immediately. The principal family of Avacourt or Avaugour were of the old Breton nobility, related to the Ducal house. The second descended from François de Bretagne, natural son of Duke Francis II. It has not been possible to indentify who commissioned these splendid bindings. Florimond Badier, who is thought to have come to Paris from Gascony, was apprenticed to Jean Thomas, gilder in 1630 and completed his studies in 1636. In 1645 he married the daughter of the binder Jean Gillede and was made free of the Guild of St Jean. Badier like Le Gascon (it has been suggested the two were the same) was a master of the pointill é or dotted style which increased the brilliance of the gilding, favoured by the leading French binders in the first half of the C17 and incorporated into the most splendid bindings of the time. Three very fine and intricate pointill é bindings signed by Badier are known and represent the pinnacle of delicacy and precision.
